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As some of you may have already noticed, there’s now a small box on the top right of JMG to sign up for our new daily recap of JMG items. Here’s the direct link. The list of subscribers can’t be sold or shared and there’s a one-click unsubscribe function. For those of you here every day to hover over my …

Live Science reports: A backhoe approaches a pine tree at the height of allergy season. It takes only a single nudge — boop! — and a massive cloud of yellow dust oozes from the branches like a toxic fog. But that’s no fog. As anyone who has to park their car under a tree in springtime will tell you, this …

The Washington Post reports: Polls closed Tuesday night in four states as Republicans, eager to claim Democratic Senate seats in states won by President Trump, closely watched races in Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia, as well as North Carolina. Battling anti-establishment fervor that threatened their position ahead of November’s midterm elections, GOP leaders were on edge about the race in …

Billboard Magazine reports: Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears has found a successful career as an out musician — his band achieved a cult fanbase within the LGBTQ community, and Shears himself has been working on his debut solo album, along with his headline-making stint as Charlie Price in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots earlier this year. On Sunday, Shears sat …

Courthouse News reports: Fighting to suppress evidence obtained with a search warrant, former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort argued in a court filing Saturday that the FBI entered his Virginia storage unit a day before the search with improper authorization. Manafort’s arguments comes in response to an April 23 brief by the government where it said an employee of a …

200K+ views in one day. Playbill reports: As the musical adaptation of Moulin Rouge! approaches its world premiere, get a first listen to the love story’s signature tune, “Come What May,” as performed by Aaron Tveit in the music video below. The video, directed by Ezra Hurwitz, features Tveit in a theatre—filled with raining score pages and flower petals—as he …

Via Playbill: The Boys in the Band, Mart Crowley’s groundbreaking 1968 play, on Broadway for the first time, began previews at the Booth Theatre this week. Tony winner Joe Mantello directs a cast that includes Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, and Matt Bomer. The limited engagement, produced by Ryan Murphy and David Stone, will open May 31 and is …

From the Hollywood Reporter: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expelled Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski from its membership, the organization said Thursday. The Academy’s board of governors, following its new procedure for enforcing a Standards of Conduct that it adopted in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, voted to expel the comedian and the director …

Theater Mania reports: Jake Gyllenhaal is set to produce and star as Leonard Bernstein in the upcoming biopic The American. Cary Joji Fukunaga (True Detective) will direct the film, with screenwriter Michael Mitnick adapting Humphrey Burton’s biography Leonard Bernstein. The film will reportedly be structured in five moments and follow Bernstein’s life from age 25, when he first conducted the …

Playbill reports: The 25th anniversary production of Tony Kushner’s two-part epic Angels In America is now the most Tony-nominated play in history. The revival earned 11 Tony nominations, placing it behind only Mean Girls and SpongeBob and tying it with The Band’s Visit and Carousel. With the 11 nods, Angels in America beats out former record-holders The Coast of Utopia …

Britain’s The Sun reports: Green Day fans are campaigning to get “American Idiot” to Number 1 in time for Donald Trump’s visit to the UK. The scheme was announced in January last year but has gained momentum after the President confirmed he was making a “working visit” to Britain on July 13. A statement said: “We have a date, he’s …

Billboard reports: Back in December, Irish rock mainstays U2 returned with their 14th studio album, Songs of Experience. The release, which is a companion piece to 2014’s Songs of Innocence, features their latest single “Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way” — and a visual for the moving track premiered Friday (April 27). The video was filmed in U2’s …

The Hill reports: Olympic freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy will headline the Democratic National Committee’s LGBTQ gala this summer. Kenworthy told ABC News that he would attend the event in New York City as a special guest, in defiance of what he called President Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ people. “I couldn’t be more excited to join the DNC at their LGBTQ …

Just in from Broadway Cares: At the 32nd Annual Easter Bonnet Competition, the talented young cast of School of Rock – The Musical joined forces with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students Sawyer Garrity and Andrea Peña to perform the students’ inspiring original song, “Shine.” Garrity and Peña wrote the song in response to the shooting at their Parkland, FL, …

A warning shot to Trump today from the Senate: The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill Thursday to give protections to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which senators said sent a message to President Donald Trump even if it has major hurdles to ever becoming law. Although the 14-7 vote on the measure split Republicans, the message from the …

This week marks the fourteenth blogiversary of this here website thingy. Counting this one, we’re at 75,285 posts over 14 years, the last ten of which have been without a day off. Whether I am insanely committed or am insane and should be committed – that is your call. The actual launch date anniversary comes this weekend, but since more …

Our pal Matt Baume looks at The Simpsons and homophobia: The 1997 episode of The Simpsons entitled “Homer’s Phobia” doesn’t just mark a turning point for queer characters on television — it’s a turning point for homophobia on television as well. With an unlikely appearance by cult filmmaker John Waters, the episode features a groundbreaking depiction of intolerance, a crash …

Some Broadway news to start you off: Harry Potter has come to Broadway. But The Boy Who Lived is a boy no longer: He’s 37 years old and going through a magical midlife crisis in J.K. Rowling and Jack Thorne’s outstanding play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which opened Sunday night. And Broadway’s never seen anything quite like it. …

Today in air travel news: Crystal Tadlock told KDVR-TV she wasn’t hungry when the flight attendant gave out apples to passengers at the end of her trip from Paris this month. She put the apple in her bag so she could eat it later. But when she went through customs, an agent pulled out the apple wrapped in a plastic …

Some Michael Cohen news from yesterday: A federal judge on Friday told President Donald Trump’s personal attorney that he must declare in writing that his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination will be compromised unless there’s a delay in a lawsuit filed by adult film star Stormy Daniels. U.S. District Judge S. James Otero said at a hearing in Los Angeles …