PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Coachella, Stagecoach canceled this year over virus concerns
The Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals in California have been canceled this year due to coronavirus concerns.
Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County’s public health officer, signed an order Wednesday canceling the popular festivals held in Indio, outside Palm Springs. Health officials are concerned about a possible surge in coronavirus cases in the fall.
JK Rowling responds to critics over her transgender comments
“Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling said she refuses to “bow down” to criticism about her recent comments on transgender people.
Rowling published a lengthy post on her blog website Wednesday in response to the backlash and her concerns over “new trans activism.” She has been under intense scrutiny about her thoughts on transgender identity from the LGBTQ community along with Eddie Redmayne and Daniel Radcliffe, who starred in the Harry Potter film franchise.
“I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it,” she said.
Rowling drew outrage Saturday on Twitter when she criticized an opinion piece published by the website Devex, a media platform for the global development community, that used the phrase “people who menstruate.” Rowling implied it should have said “women.”
White House balks, again, at Bolton plan to publish
The White House has told former national security adviser John Bolton that the manuscript of his forthcoming memoir still contains classified material and could present a national security threat. But Bolton’s lawyer said Wednesday that publication will go ahead as planned on June 23 and he accused the White House of unfairly trying to keep it on ice.
John Eisenberg, a deputy White House counsel, wrote Bolton attorney Charles Cooper this week raising concerns that the manuscript for “The Room Where It Happened” still “contains classified information.”
Cooper, writing in The Wall Street Journal, said White House lawyers have slow-walked the process because “President Trump simply doesn’t want John Bolton to publish his book.”
Wintour apologizes for race-related ‘mistakes’ at Vogue
Vogue’s Anna Wintour has apologized in an internal email for “mistakes” made in her 32-year tenure in not doing enough to elevate black voices on her staff and publishing images and stories that have been racially and culturally “hurtful or intolerant.”
The fashion doyenne wrote in the June 4 email: “I take full responsibility for those mistakes.”
Wintour’s mea culpa surfaced soon after Adam Rapoport, the editor in chief of another Conde Nast title, Bon Appetit, resigned after an old photo surfaced of him in brownface, amplifying outrage over how the food magazine treats employees of color.