From the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today renewed its commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Gates Foundation is giving $750 million through a promissory note—a new and innovative funding mechanism. “These are tough economic times, but that is …

The seizure that sent Demi Moore to the emergency room was reportedly triggered by inhaling nitrous oxide. I hadn’t heard of Whip-Its in twenty years.

NASA has released a super-high resolution image of the Earth.

Yesterday New York Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell and his partner John Banta finally got their marriage license after 31 years together. As has been well documented on this blog, O’Donnell is one of the chief architects of marriage equality in New York, having led his chamber to approve the issue in three consecutive years. O’Donnell and Banta were at the City …

Enjoy the hand-wringing. Unless God intervenes, Governor Chris Gregoire will succeed in her effort to legalize same-sex “marriage” in Washington State. Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D) announced Monday that she will support the bill, making her’s the 25th vote necessary for passage. “You are saying…you know better than God,” said Pastor Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church. The House …

What do you collect?

Moments after he stepped off Air Force One at the Phoenix airport this afternoon, President Obama exchanged terse words with wingnut Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who apparently began the incident by shoving an letter into Obama’s hand. Brewer later spoke with a local reporter. “He was a little disturbed about my book, Scorpions for Breakfast,” Brewer said. “I said to …

Newt Gingrich, pandering in Florida: “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,” Gingrich said to applause. He said the development would include commercial and private efforts, and will make apparent, “we clearly have the capacity that Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close …

Ask him all about it: 919-829-6160.

Google has joined fellow corporate giants Starbucks and Microsoft in backing Washington state’s pending marriage equality bill. Also new to the ever-growing list is aluminum manufacturer Alcoa, which supplies much of the state’s aircraft industry. Speaking of which, where’s Boeing?

Florida’s Cuban population is one of the very few minority groups that forms a major voting block for the Republican party, although younger Cuban-Americans have been bailing in large numbers. Here’s what Mittens is telling Florida’s Cubans: “Newt Gingrich claims to be a Reagan conservative but said he would not change the failed Obama policy to allow travel to Cuba, …

Atlanta’s OutWrite Books is no more. The independent LGBT bookstore, located for the last 15 years at its iconic landmark in Midtown, held its “Last Tango” at the store last night featuring authors such as Franklin Abbott, Collin Kelley, Hollis Gillespie, Mose Hardin, Karen Head and Don Perryman. Owner Philip Rafshoon confirmed the store was closing today. He said there …

Today around 2:30pm I’ll be on Michelangelo Signorile’s SiriusXM show to talk about some of the latest LGBT-related news items. The gays are on channel 108 and you can listen live online if you sign up for a freebie account. What would be your top five gay news stories this week?

Giffords’ resignation letter had to be read by an occasionally sobbing DNC head Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz. I watched this live this morning, you’ll probably need a tissue.

A coalition of major national HIV/AIDS advocacy groups is asking that the FDA approve the Gilead drug Truvada as a daily preventive or “pre-exposure prophylaxis” (PreP) against infection. Among the groups joining the demand are amfAR and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Via press release: The PrEP sNDA for Truvada®meets criteria set out in FDA’s Manual of Policies and Procedures …

As I’ve noted here on several occasions, Brooklyn’s Hasidic communities have been increasing their attempts to impose religious law on their neighborhoods. We’ve seen demands that women sit at the back of public buses and we’ve seen street signs commanding women to step aside for approaching men. We’ve seen attempts to ban bike lanes so that “immodestly dressed” female bikers …

The New Hampshire legislature will consider a bill that would allow Christian businesses to refuse service to gay couples. Rep. Frank Sapareto says anybody that opposes his bill is “intolerant.” The bill would put an exemption in state marriage law. The proposed text says no person, including a business owner or employee, should be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, …