Ending today with this. Good night. 💚pic.twitter.com/IGJZIhUFim
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) February 6, 2020
On paper, everything was going well for Seth Owen. A valedictorian of a high school in Jacksonville, Fla., with a 4.16 grade-point average, the 18-year-old had been accepted to Georgetown University as part of its Class of 2022.
But he had left his parents’ house in February after they had given him an ultimatum to attend their church, after years of disagreements related to his sexuality — Owen is gay — or move out, he told NBC News. And Georgetown’s financial aid package for him had been calculated based on what his family was expected to contribute, leaving him with a $20,000 gap to pay the tuition for his first year.
“While the campaign has been ongoing, the professionals at the Office of Student Financial Services have continued to work with me to make my dream a reality,” Owen said on Friday in a statement sent to NBC News. “Due to their efforts and attention, they were able to adjust my aid package even further, my expected contribution is now $0. With these new adjustments, I will be able to attend Georgetown University this fall.”
A survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church.
Juan Carlos Cruz, who spoke privately with the pope two weeks ago about the abuse he suffered at the hands of one of Chile’s most notorious paedophiles, said the issue of his sexuality had arisen because some of the Latin American country’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert as they accused him of lying about the abuse.
“He told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are,’” Cruz told Spanish newspaper El PaÃs.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted that gay people have been “appallingly” treated by the Church of England.
Archbishop Justin Welby has been at the centre of splits in both the Church of England and the global Anglican Communion over LGBT issues.
Liberal clergy are pushing for a more accepting stance towards same-sex couples, while traditionalists want the Church to stick by teachings that homosexuality is “unnatural”.
An Indiana bride-to-be, who cancelled her wedding reception at a pricey hotel, is not going to let all of the food and cake go to waste. Instead, she is inviting local homeless families for dinner after failing to get her deposit back.
According to the Indy Star, Purdue student Sarah Cummins, 25, and her fiance. Logan Araujo, had a wedding planned at the Ritz Charles in Carmel, Indiana with a budget of $30,000 to cover the whole thing. After canceling the wedding — for unspecified reasons — Cummins was unable to get her deposit back.
“It was really devastating to me. I called everyone, canceled, apologized, cried, called vendors, cried some more, and then I started feeling really sick about just throwing away all the food I ordered for the reception,” Cummins explained, saying she has worked an event planner at Ritz to rework the evening.
According to Cummins, she has arranged for buses to picks up homeless families at local shelter for the dinner this weekend, where the attendees will dine on bourbon-glazed meatballs, goat cheese and roasted garlic bruschetta, chicken breast with artichokes and Chardonnay cream. And, wedding cake, of course.
Edward “E.” Nigma, aka, “The Riddler,” and Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, aka, “The Penguin” were formally arrested today and charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and kidnapping for their all too familiar villainous ways in Gotham City, according to Melinda Haag, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California and FBI Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson.
The unique and somewhat unprecedented indictment not only outlines the charges against “The Riddler” and “The Penguin” but it also includes a special thanks to a certain caped crusader who was pivotal in making this day a reality.
“We’ve been chasing Nigma and Cobblepot for years and just when I was about to give up hope that we would ever bring them to justice, wouldn’t you know it – Batkid shows up and saves the day,” said United States Attorney Melinda Haag. “I’ve been involved in some unbelievable cases and I’ve worked with some pretty remarkable law enforcement officers, but the bravery displayed by Batkid is off the charts. I’m absolutely certain that there is no villain this remarkable super-hero can’t defeat.”
On a cold November night in Times Square, Officer Lawrence DePrimo was working a counterterrorism post when he encountered an older, barefooted homeless man. The officer disappeared for a moment, then returned with a new pair of boots, and knelt to help the man put them on. . . .
The officer, normally assigned to the Sixth Precinct in the West Village, readily recalled the encounter. “It was freezing out and you could see the blisters on the man’s feet,” he said in an interview. “I had two pairs of socks and I was still cold.” They started talking; he found out the man’s shoe size: 12.
As the man walked slowly down Seventh Avenue on his heels, Officer DePrimo went into a Skechers shoe store at about 9:30 p.m. “We were just kind of shocked,” said Jose Cano, 28, a manager working at the store that night. “Most of us are New Yorkers and we just kind of pass by that kind of thing. Especially in this neighborhood.”
Mr. Cano volunteered to give the officer his employee discount to bring down the regular $100 price of the all-weather boots to a little more than $75. The officer has kept the receipt in his vest since then, he said, “to remind me that sometimes people have it worse.”
