Via press release: Today, Governor John Bel Edwards signed an executive order providing employment protections for state employees and employees of state contractors on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, political affiliation, disability, or age. This executive order also prohibits discrimination in services provided by state agencies, and recognizes an exemption for churches …

The New York Daily News reports: The “Affluenza” teen will spend the next two years behind bars. A judge ordered Ethan Couch — the Texas teen who dodged a prison sentence for a fatal 2013 DUI crash by claiming he was too privileged to serve time, only to flee the country two years later — to serve four consecutive 180-day …

Via Mediaite: We at Mediaite were the first to lay out all the creepy times Donald Trump has joked about how he would sleep with Ivanka Trump if she wasn’t, you know, his daughter. Now, those jokes feature in an attack ad being aired on Western New York’s radio waves. “In 2006, he said on The View, ‘If Ivanka weren’t …

So THIS started to go viral a few days ago. From the Daily Mail: Hell hath no fury like an angry Southern mom. Taking away electronics is a common parental punishment, but this mother decided to take it one step further – and shoot up her children’s iPhones with a rifle. ‘I hereby denounce the effects that social media have …

Tennessee’s governor hasn’t even signed the bill yet, but Liberty Counsel is ready to jump in and defend making White Jesus the official state savior. Via press release: “The Establishment Clause requires government neutrality toward religion, but the Tennessee legislature’s selection of the Bible as the state book does not require anyone to read the Bible, and it does not …

But it’s not dead yet. The Kansas City Star reports: Late into the night Tuesday, supporters and opponents of a proposed “religious freedom” amendment sparred over its potential impact.  On one side, religious leaders and Republican elected officials implored the House Emerging Issues Committee to approve the amendment as is and place it on the ballot for Missouri voters to …

Via press release from New York City Pride:  Heritage of Pride announced today three Grand Marshals for the 47th NYC Pride March. – Jazz Jennings is the 15-year-old honorary co-founder of the Transkids Purple Rainbow Foundation and the youngest Grand Marshal in NYC Pride history. Since her first appearance with her family at age 6 on 20/20, Jazz has become …

From CBS News: “I’m an independent, and I’ve always voted based on the candidate as opposed to based on the party, and it was actually a very interesting experience,” Ivanka Trump told CNN during Tuesday’s town hall. “So, we’re not a family of politicians. We haven’t been in politics very long.” “New York has one of the most onerous rules …

From their editorial: On April 19, New York Democrats will have unusual say over the party’s nominee. They have in Clinton a superprepared warrior realist. They have in opponent Bernie Sanders a fantasist who’s at passionate war with reality. By choosing Clinton, Empire State Dems would powerfully signal that the party has gotten real about achieving long-sought goals. Clinton is …

UPDATE: False alarm. Despite tons of media interest, the announcement has to do with an appointment to a state law enforcement group. From Raleigh’s CBS affiliate: North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory will make a special announcement Wednesday morning, a day after he issued an executive order on House Bill 2. The announcement will take place Wednesday at 9 a.m. at …

The Hill reports: Donald Trump says he will not be attending this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, despite receiving a flurry of invitations from the media. Trump attended the annual dinner in 2011, only to have President Obama poke fun at him repeatedly in his comedy routine. The resulting press coverage did not sit well with the GOP front-runner. …

Arstechnica reports: Under the first-of-its-kind legislation proposed in New York, drivers involved in accidents would have to submit their phone to roadside testing from a textalyzer to determine whether the driver was using a mobile phone ahead of a crash. In a bid to get around the Fourth Amendment right to privacy, the textalyzer allegedly would keep conversations, contacts, numbers, …

The Raleigh News & Observer has produced a great video in which transgender residents speak out against North Carolina’s HB 2. Watch below as these people express shock, confusion, regret, and dismay over being stereotyped as sexual predators. Huge props to the paper for doing this.

The Guardian reports: A Chinese judge has rejected a gay couple’s attempt to secure the right to marry in the country’s first same-sex marriage case. Sun Wenlin, 27, from the central province of Hunan, had sued the civil affairs bureau in the city of Changsha for the right to marry his 37-year-old partner Hu Mingliang, a security guard. Sun decided …

Duggar Duggar Duggar. Via press release from Tony Perkins: People have been wondering for years how to get porn out of their communities. Now they know: Make bathrooms gender-specific! That’s all it took in North Carolina, where one of the country’s leading adult sites is hitting the road to protest H.B. 2. A day after Bruce Springsteen’s tirade, xHamster is …

From the New York-Mississippi Society: We, the founders of the Mississippi Picnic in Central Park and the New York-Mississippi Society, are officially canceling this year’s picnic in its 37th year. As a result of the unfortunate adoption of House Bill 1523, we have been informed that several concerned groups in New York City intend to demonstrate in protest of the …

As most of you surely know, last fall Ted Cruz attended a religious attended a “religious liberty” conference at which Pastor Kevin Swanson called for executing homosexuals shortly before interviewing Cruz on the same stage. Cruz had been warned about Swanson’s track record by CNN’s Jake Tapper before the event and after three weeks of ignoring questions from the media, …

A notoriously combative MP was booted from the room after calling out Prime Minister David Cameron over his father being named in the Panama Papers leak. The Mirror reports: Labour veteran Dennis Skinner has been thrown out of the House of Commons chamber for calling the Prime Minister ‘dodgy Dave’. The infamous Beast of Bolsover made his attack as he …

Via Science Daily: Around half of all heterosexual men and women potentially carry so-called homosexuality genes that are passed on from one generation to the next. This has helped homosexuality to be present among humans throughout history and in all cultures, even though homosexual men normally do not have many descendants who can directly inherit their genes. This idea is …

Moments ago House Speaker Paul Ryan began a press conference at RNC headquarters by declaring this: “I do not want nor will I accept the nomination of our party. Count me out. Period. End of story.” At this writing the press is continuing to grill Ryan about his having said pretty much the same about becoming Speaker. Watch below. “Count …