“Thank you for helping him see that not only DOES it get better, it gets AMAZING.”
Excerpt from a letter sent by the mother of a 12-year-old gay youth, Colin, who she says is bullied in school. That letter was sent to Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, aka the Beekman Boys, the gay couple who were shown winning the 21st season of Emmy-winning The Amazing Race on the Dec. 9 finale of the reality TV show. In response, Kilmer-Purcell and Ridge recruited their fellow cast members, who photographed themselves with messages telling Colin he is “amazing.”
Owners of several D.C. LGBTQ bars and nightclubs say the federal takeover of the cityâs police force -- and the surge of federal agents stationed on 14th Street NW and along the U Street corridor -- cost them thousands of dollars in lost business this past weekend.
Mark Rutstein, co-owner of Crush Dance Bar at 14th and U Streets NW, told CBS affiliate WUSA that August 15 was the worst Friday the bar has seen since opening last year. He estimated losses to be approximately $15,000 for the night.
Rutstein told The Advocate that Crush sat near a multi-agency checkpoint, including agents from the Department of Homeland Security, set up on Wednesday evening. Authorities reportedly made 45 arrests, 29 of them immigration-related.
Police in Paris, France, have arrested a homeless Tunisian migrant accused of killing four men whose bodies were later found in the Seine River. The case began on August 13, when a commuter spotted a corpse floating in the river. Investigators subsequently recovered three more bodies from the same stretch of water.
Autopsies confirmed all four victims were men. At least two had been strangled, though forensic experts could not determine the exact cause of death for the others, according to The Times. Police are investigating the four deaths as homicides.
Misha Brown, a 37-year-old influencer, actor, and host of the Wondery podcast The Big Flop, revealed in a TikTok video on July 17 that he had received an apology from his former high school bully -- 20 years after graduation -- after the bully's 15-year-old son came out as gay.
"Hey man, I just felt like I needed to tell you that I'm sorry I was a damn jerk in school," the message read. "Really, I'm sorry. But I've been following what you've done lately and it's really cool. I'm proud of you. You're like really helping people. The reason I wanted to tell you all this is I've got a son now. He's 15, and he told me he's gay. Man, all I thought about when he told me that was how I hope people are nicer to him than I was to you. It makes me proud to be his dad. And hopefully that makes up for something."
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