Gavin Newsom signs bills a day after controversial veto on parental support of their child’s gender identity

The California governor, Gavin Newsom, signed several bills on Saturday aimed at bolstering the state’s protections for LGBTQ+ people, a day after the Democrat issued a controversial veto that was criticized by advocates.

The new laws include legislation that focuses on support for LGBTQ+ youth. One law sets timelines for required cultural competency training for public school teachers and staff, while another creates an advisory taskforce to determine the needs of LGBTQ+ students and help advance supportive initiatives.

Representative for Louise Redknapp says sisters Easther and Vernie Bennett refused to play Pride events due to trans people ‘hijacking’ gay community

Chart-topping British girl group Eternal have cancelled a planned full-band reunion due to an alleged difference in views on transgender rights.

A representative for singer Louise Redknapp, who went on to have a successful solo career, confirmed reports that she had left the reunion due to a clash in values with sisters Easther and Vernie Bennett.

This year’s 40th annual survey of the way we think reveals a country that, for all its flaws, is more liberal and more social democratic than before

The problem with modern Britain, said Liz Truss in a recent interview, is that it remains in thrall to social democratic ideas ushered in by New Labour in 1997 and which the Conservatives have not been bold enough in combatting or reversing. This will have been news to much of the public, particularly those who remember the long years of Conservative austerity after 2010 and the Tory party’s self‑expulsion of Britain from the European Union after 2016. Neither of these dominant events of the last 13 years was a flagship social democratic policy last time we looked.

Yet Ms Truss is almost right in one respect. The British public has been moving slowly and steadily in a more social democratic direction in recent years. The publication this week of the 40th annual British Social Attitudes survey provides some of the evidence. It reveals, for instance, that the public does not only want government to fund health care and pensions, it also wants it to reduce income differences between the rich and the poor. The public supports further increases in taxes and spending in order to fund public services too, in spite of the fact that taxes are already high by historic standards.

WHO says China facing ‘sustained community transmission’ of virus first detected as imported case last year

China is fuelling a global surge in mpox cases, accounting for the majority of new cases reported in September, according to the World Health Organization.

The number of weekly cases reported globally increased by 328% in the week to 10 September, data shows. Most of that rise came from China, where more than 500 new cases were reported in August. The WHO said China was experiencing “sustained community transmission” of the virus, which was first detected as an imported case in September last year.

A partnership with the influencer Dylan Mulvaney prompted a backlash that tanked sales. Insiders condemn the company’s response

When Anheuser-Busch InBev, the multinational beer company, promoted Alissa Heinerscheid to vice-president of marketing for Bud Light in July 2022, she became the first female VP in the beer’s 40-year history. “It’s just old white men,” says one former employee of the company leadership. “That’s why we were excited to at least have Alissa in that role.”

In a March 2023 interview with the lifestyle podcast Make Yourself At Home, Heinerscheid spoke of her remit. “I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was: ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light.’” Part of that involved updating the marketing to be “lighter, brighter” and more inclusive. “Bud Light had […] a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor,” Heinerscheid said.

As anti-trans and anti-drag legislation spreads across the US, D’Arcy Drollinger hopes to use her ‘larger-than-life’ role to fight hatred

When D’Arcy Drollinger, a veteran of the San Francisco drag community, was named the city’s first drag laureate this year, she quickly realized she was walking right into the eye of a storm.

The 54-year-old performer, who said she was initially caught off guard by the nomination, has found herself at the forefront of a long-brewing culture war. With anti-trans legislation spreading across the US and bills banning drag performance being passed in various states, her first few months in the role have been a whirlwind.

Hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ laws were introduced in 2023, including bans on drag shows, but many have been struck down

At the beginning of 2023, drag came under attack.

Tennessee, Texas and Montana all passed laws which would specifically ban drag artists from performing in certain public spaces – the latest part of a conservative culture war that has seen books banned from schools and libraries around the US and rights stripped from the LGBTQ+ community.

Starting out, the actor was told someone like her could never work in TV. Now she’s been cast on Australia’s best-known show and her message for him: ‘Taste it’

Many Australians will have seen actor Naomi Rukavina on stage. “I was Ginny, Hermione, McGonagall, Umbridge and Hooch,” she says of her three years in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, ticking each role off with a finger. “I did a lot.”

But the 40-year-old has just landed her first permanent television role in one of Australia’s most famous shows. In the rebooted Neighbours, Rukavina plays Dr Remi Varga-Murphy who, with her tradie wife Cara (Sara West) and their two sons, are the newest family to move to Ramsay Street.

Mike Parish hid his sexuality at work and wouldn’t even hold Tom’s hand in the street. How did he end up running an LGBTQ+ support group?

Mike Parish was 19 and on the escalator at Victoria station in London when a tiny sticker caught his eye. As he read the words “Do you think you’re gay?”, the escalator whisked him downwards. He had to go back up and then down again to copy the phone number, which was for an organisation called Icebreakers. This act proved a turning point for Parish, who had increasingly felt at odds with how he fitted into the world.

It took weeks to brave dialling the number. “I think I’m gay, but I don’t want to wear a dress and carry a handbag,” he told the man at the end of the line; it was 1974 and now, aged 68, Parish looks back and is saddened by his own lack of knowledge. The man laughed and invited him to a tea party the following Sunday. Sitting on the sofa there, he reached for his cup of tea at the same time as a young man on the other end of the couch. They smiled at each other. “I fell for Tom in that moment,” Parish says.

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

Olivia Hill, 57, a military veteran, joins the Nashville city council in historic election

A transgender woman won election to a seat on Nashville’s city council, becoming the first openly transgender person to be voted into political office in Tennessee.

Olivia Hill, 57, secured one of the four open at-large seats on the metro council of Nashville, a politically liberal city in an overwhelmingly conservative state.