The police are investigating a hate crime in Washington, New York preserves LGBTQ history videos, and Maine's governor bites back at President Donald Trump.
Police Investigating Hate Crime Outside LGBTQ Bar
A hate crime unfolded outside a popular queer bar in Seattle, police say.
Witness accounts state that a car, suspected to be filled with two or three young white men, began circling the bar and shouting anti-gay slurs at people.
The car circled the block 10 times in an hour, according to witnesses. The people inside the vehicle then resorted to shooting pellets, or water beads, at others standing outside the business.
Though hate crime rates in Seattle have decreased in the past three years, the city’s police department said half of the hate crimes committed in 2024 were linked to a person’s sexual orientation.
City Preserves LGBTQ History Videos
Stacie Brensilver Berman. Courtesy of nyu.edu.
Following multiple anti-LGBTQ executive orders from President Donald Trump, PBS deleted educational videos covering queer history it made in partnership with NYC Public Schools.
Now, the city’s Education Department is preserving the videos on its own website.
The videos were part of a series called “Hidden Voices,” which teach about the history of marginalized and underrepresented groups.
Stacie Brensilver Berman, a NYU professor, told Chalkbeat New York that saving the videos shows the department’s commitment to supporting students.
“It might not be the statement they’re trying to make at all, but it does in my mind signal to LGBTQ students and teachers that the DOE is supporting them,” Berman said.
Gov. Bites Back At Trump’s Anti-Trans Order
Gov. Janet Mills. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills had a straightforward response to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning trans women from competing in women’s sports: “See you in court.”
According to CNN, Trump said he’d take away federal funding from Maine if the state didn’t comply with the executive order.
Trump singled out Mills at a bipartisan event during the annual National Governors Association winter summit last weekend.
Maine officials have argued that they are obligated to protect equal opportunities for students under the Maine Human Rights Act, which was amended in 2021 to combat gender identity discrimination.
After Trump asked if she would comply with the executive order, Mills said she’d comply with state and federal laws.
“Well, we are the federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
That’s when Mills said she’d see Trump in court.
“Good, I’ll see you in court, I look forward to that,” Trump said. “That should be a real easy one, and enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
