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LOS ANGELES – Incumbent Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey conceded the election race Friday morning to former Los Angeles Police Department assistant chief and former San Francisco DA George Gascón. Lacey announced her decision in a press conference.

LOS ANGELES – Along with most of the United States Wednesday, California woke up to an undetermined outcome in the race for the White House, which as of Wednesday evening showed President Donald Trump trailing his Democratic challenger, former Vice-President Joe Biden, with an electoral count of 264 – 214 as of 6 PM Pacific.

WEST HOLLYWOOD – Wednesday morning, Nov. 4, after a harrowing Election Night where Democrats saw their wishes for a Blue Wave crash on the jagged cliffs of Trumpism, Los Angeles County Democratic Party Chair Mark J. Gonzalez managed to find a patch of blue in the foggy political sky.  

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Facebook on Oct. 24 once again disabled a transgender activist’s personal page, following a string of bans this year and prior issues with the platform.

ARLINGTON, Texas – The Los Angeles Dodgers Tuesday bested the Tampa Bay Rays, 3-1, in Game 6 of the World Series title match at the Globe Life Field in Arlington, taking home Major League Baseball’s Commissioner’s Trophy.

EL CENTRO – The Imperial Valley LGBT Resource Center announced this week that it was establishing a new virtual program for Youth Trans ages of 12 -17. In an emailed statement to the Blade, the center’s Director/CEO Rosa Diaz, noted that the new program is set to commence in November.

LOS ANGELES – There are only three days left until the election on Tuesday, November 3. This year marks what is arguably the most critical election cycle at all levels of the American Republic, local, state, federal- but significantly in the race for the White House.

LOS ANGELES – In a grim milestone Friday the United States passed 9 million active cases of the coronavirus according to the database maintained by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. At 9,015,262 total confirmed cases since the pandemic began, the U.S. has the highest number of any country in the global community. This coming less than two weeks after the nation passed 8 million cases.

LOS ANGELES – There are many prominent political figures that are either on the stage upfront or operate behind the scenes. Drexel Heard is a prime example of a political figure that spends a lot of time analyzing public policy and applying that knowledge to campaigns, and from off stage.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Amy Coney Barrett as the newest Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48, solidifying a 6-3 conservative majority on the bench and President Donald Trump’s lasting impact on the judiciary.

The HBO Max docuseries, “Equal,” which debuts this week, is designed to shore up our education by profiling various pioneers in a movement for LGBTQ equality that might never have happened if not for their refusal to stay invisible. It’s “infotainment” in the best sense of that term, blending real-life archival footage with newly filmed “re-enactments” to deliver a concise overview of pre-Stonewall history.

Fans of the Christian pop group Avalon always wondered why founding member Michael Passons resigned abruptly in 2003 and then seemed to drop off the face of the earth.

SACRAMENTO – A reminder that today, Monday October 19, 2020 is the deadline to register to vote by mail and that registration must be postmarked before midnight.

MADRID — Nonardo Perea vive en el cuerpo de Michel. Lo utiliza a su antojo para ser lo mismo clásico que vulgar, angelical o diabólico, hombre o mujer. Nonardo puede ser lo que quiera. Detrás de ese Alter Ego, se esconde Michel, tímido y retraído, quien le presta su rostro y sus manos para mostrar al mundo sus pretensiones como artista. 

WASHINGTON — A group of LGBTQ Latino activists from across the country who participated in a virtual roundtable on Wednesday said the election results are a matter of “survival.” for their respective communities.

SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Secretary of State Alex Padilla in a joint appearance during a press conference Friday appeared to back off further legal actions against the California Republican Party over their use of unauthorized ballot drop boxes.

PHILADELPHIA- Democratic Party presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden, asked Thursday evening during a town hall on ABC News by the mother of a transgender child how he’d reverse anti-LGBTQ policy during the Trump administration, was direct about in his plan: “I will flat out change the law.”

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Civilian Oversight Commission on the LA County Sheriff’s department delivered a resolution Thursday afternoon calling on L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva to resign his office.

If you are one of the many residents of WeHo that looks forward to the city’s ongoing Drag Queen Story Hours, there’s good news.

SACRAMENTO – California’s campaign is calling on all Californians to take the Census today since the U.S. Census Bureau is stopping Census operations Thursday, October 15, 2020. Families still have one last chance to make a difference for their family and neighborhood by taking the Census online, by phone or mail.

Editor’s note: Tremenda Nota is the Los Angeles Blade’s media partner in Cuba. A Spanish version of this story can be found here.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Tuesday declined to hear the appeal from the state of Idaho of a federal appellate court ruling which had ordered the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) to provide medically necessary gender confirmation surgery to a trans inmate.

LOS ANGELES – This year LGBTQ people faced a difficult dilemma on Oct. 11, National Coming Out Day: come out, be authentic, and jump into the progressive fight for full equality – or stay closeted, silent, and sheltered from the gathering storm of anti-LGBTQ animus threatening to blow down LGBTQ rights like a house of cards.

In his book by the same name, there are “22 life lessons” that Netflix employee, Amir Moini, wants to share with you during LGBTQ History Month.

Nota del editor: Tremenda Nota es el medio socio del Los Angeles Blade en Cuba. Esa nota salió en su portal el 12 de octubre.

HOLLYWOOD – In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2020, Project Angel Food and the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine announced Monday the organizations had launched a two year collaborative study into the affects of diabetes among native Americans living in Southern California.

SANTA CLARITA – The North Los Angeles County Freedom’s Way Baptist church, known for its anti-LGBTQ and anti-women’s reproductive rights viewpoints, posted a picture on Facebook a few days ago of a grey metal container with a taped sign that read “Official Ballot Drop Box.”

WASHINGTON – A first-of-its-kind medical journal study published on Sept. 24 shows that as many as 3,217 intended donations of corneas from the eyes of gay and bisexual men in 2018 that could have restored the vision of blind people through cornea transplant surgery were disqualified under an “outdated” U.S. Food and Drug Administration policy aimed at preventing HIV infection.

‘Found in Transition’By Paria Hassouri, MDc.2020, New World Library$25.95/215 pages

LOS ANGELES – There’s a certain comfort in those friendships in one’s life that transcend work, or even some familial relationships with others who one deems close. A friendship where if separated by even distance and time you can still pick a phone- call, and the thread of conversation seemingly picks right up as though time itself hadn’t been interrupted.

SANTA ANA, El Salvador – La Iglesia Episcopal Anglicana de El Salvador (IAES) siempre se ha caracterizado por ser una iglesia inclusiva y de puertas abiertas, desde la creación del Ministerio de Diversidad Sexual en el año 2009, el cual es una pastoral que reúne tanto a personas LGBTQ como también aliados de la misma comunidad, volviéndose un espacio en el que todas y todos pueden vivir su fe, libres de discriminación.

BRUSSELS — A lawmaker in Belgium last week became Europe’s highest-ranking transgender politician.

LARAMIE – Twenty-two years ago today a University of Wyoming freshman left the Fireside Bar in downtown Laramie just after midnight and was found hours later tied to a fence outside of town badly beaten and left to die. The reason for the attack was simply because he was gay.

LOS ANGELES – A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) told the Los Angeles Blade Tuesday that detectives are investigating the stabbing attack on a transwoman at MacArthur Park Sunday as a hate crime.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump returned to the White House Monday evening after spending three days of Coronavirus treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. After walking off Marine One, the presidential helicopter, which had landed on the South Lawn, the president walked up the stairs leading to the South Portico where he turned to face a small assembled group of staffers and immediately removed his mask.

Viachaslau Bortnik wrote this op-ed. He served as a Belarus country specialist at Amnesty International USA from 2012-2019.