Last week in Orlando, restaurateur Trina Gregory transformed 49 parking spots outside her eatery into canvases for local artists, who painted rainbow-colored murals in protest of a new federal mandate targeting street art. Under U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the department has ordered states to remove rainbow crosswalks and other murals deemed “visual distractions” from public streets, a directive embraced by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Both DeSantis and Duffy argue that rainbow crosswalks — the primary target of their mural crackdown — amount to political messaging and are inappropriate for public roads.
One of the crosswalks erased in Orlando had been installed near the site of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre, commemorating the 49 victims. It was also part of a planned Pulse memorial that received $400,000 in state funding.
On August 21, Florida Department of Transportation crews painted over the crosswalk without notifying local officials. About 100 residents responded by chalking the rainbow stripes back in, prompting Florida Highway Patrol to arrest activists for “interfering with a traffic control device” and to station officers nearby to stop others from “defacing” the site.
Against that backdrop, Trina Gregory, owner of Se7en Bites, a restaurant specializing in “Southern comfort food,” invited local artists to paint murals in her parking lot. The event doubled as a celebration of artistic freedom and an indirect protest against the erased rainbow crosswalk.
Because the parking spots were on private property, neither DeSantis nor FDOT had any legal authority to stop the event.
Gregory told The Associated Press she received 1,000 applications for the September 15 event, dubbed “Parking Space for Pride — A Rainbow Connection.”
“Art has always been a form of resistance and healing,” Gregory said of FDOT’s paving over the Pride memorial crosswalk. “If they want to erase symbols of pride and acceptance, then we’ll create even more of them. This isn’t just about paint, it’s about community, visibility, and love.”
Participating artists created murals in a range of designs, many using the colors of the traditional rainbow Pride flag. The public voted on their favorites, and the top five artists earned guaranteed spots at next year’s event, which organizers hope will become an annual tradition.
Justice Department had demanded Boston Children's Hospital hand over patients' and employees' personal information under the guise of combating medical "fraud."
A federal judge has quashed a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice demanding that Boston Children’s Hospital turn over private medical information on youth receiving gender-affirming care, blasting the request as a “fishing expedition” aimed at prosecuting doctors under the guise of investigating health care fraud.
In his ruling, Judge Myong Joun, a Biden appointee, said the Justice Department sought an “astonishingly broad array of documents and information that are virtually unlimited in scope,” including patients’ Social Security numbers, home addresses, and personal details, as well as the complete personnel files of all 2,000 Boston Children’s Hospital employees, regardless of whether they had any involvement in providing gender-affirming care to minors.
LGBTQ advocates are condemning a series of six amendments tacked on to the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that funds the U.S. Department of Defense and other defense-related agencies.
The amendments, which target LGBTQ visibility and transgender health care in particular, were passed on largely party-line votes in the House of Representatives, causing Democrats to cry foul.
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, accused Republicans of sacrificing bipartisan support for the NDAA by politicizing the process to curry favor with President Donald Trump and socially conservative voters. He warned that, if enacted, the amendments would harm transgender service members, cadets, and dependents of military personnel.
"I was really into politics at a very young age," says Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast and an MSNBC political analyst. "I can't remember what they were called, but you'd get those kid magazines about politics that would come to your school, and I remember always really being drawn to them, and reading them and wanting to know more. I always knew lots of weird facts about politics and geography as a little middle school nerd."
Raised in St. Louis until fourth grade, when his family relocated to Littleton, Colorado, Miller became enmeshed in conservative politics at a young age, taking various campaign jobs throughout his career as a former Republican strategist. He jokes that his success at handicapping political races dates back to the 1992 election, when he won a $1 wager after betting his grandmother that then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton would unseat sitting president George H.W. Bush.
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