Metro Weekly magazine — 2019-10-31 edition (PDF)
By Metro Weekly Contributor
on
October 31, 2019
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President Donald Trump has commuted the 87-month prison sentence of former U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), the openly gay congressman who pleaded guilty in August 2024 to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
By commuting his sentence, Trump allows the 37-year-old former congressman to walk free and resume his life. Before his imprisonment, Santos had been earning money on Cameo, charging up to $350 for personalized video messages -- from birthday greetings to shout-outs for special occasions.
Elected in 2022 amid a Republican "wave" in New York, the one-term congressman admitted to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of nearly a dozen people -- including relatives -- to fund his campaign.
John Reid, a gay Republican radio host running for Virginia lieutenant governor, posted a 40-minute video of himself debating an AI-generated version of his Democratic opponent after she declined repeated debate requests.
The attention-grabbing video, posted to Reid's YouTube channel, shows him standing behind a podium as if at a formal debate, facing what his campaign claims is an AI-generated version of State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D-Richmond), programmed with her policy positions and a robotic approximation of her voice.
U.S. Catholic bishops have voted to bar Catholic hospitals from providing transgender patients with gender-affirming care, including hormones and surgical procedures.
The vote, taken last week during the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' plenary assembly in Baltimore, updates the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services," the Church's rulebook governing medical procedures it deems immoral.
The directives spell out how Catholic-affiliated hospitals and staff should respond to medical situations that may clash with personal religious beliefs or Church teaching on issues like end-of-life care, contraception, abortion, or gender identity.
