News: Natasha Richardson, Subway Hero, AIDS, Cape Cod, iPhone 3.0

Minnesota Family Council warns world will end if gays are allowed to marry. Muslim Community Center director: "If everyone is a gay, this world will cease to exist in 10 years."

EW makes last-minute cover switch. Family vigil at bedside in New York as Natasha Richardson condition fails to improve...UPDATE: Richardson off life support.

Poor George Clooney doesn't have a heated toilet seat to sit on while he does his business in Chad.

A woman was pierced by an arrow in NYC.

Merriam Webster redefines marriage.

Boston, Washington, or Cleveland to get 2014 Gay Games.

Marc Jacobs to host party at "trashy" gay Brazilian nightclub.

D.C. AIDS rate hits 3%.

Search for solution to AIDS vaccine takes new turn: " Back at square one, a group of researchers at Rockefeller University in New York City have some new ideas — and no shortage of optimism — about how to find the holy grail of AIDS research. Their approach to vaccine development is to abandon the as yet fruitless search for a magic bullet — which zeros in on just a single target to halt the virus — and instead try to mimic the body's natural, if rare and more diffuse, defense against the virus"

Meet The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

New Warhol exhibit opens at the newly remodeled Grand Palais in Paris.

Judge orders case of Lawrence King's teen killer to move forward.

Citations for public sex acts in Cape Cod dunes drop in 2008: "The drop in tickets is due to a public education campaign waged by Seashore staff and a shortage of rangers, a park official said. Federal rangers gave out 49 disorderly conduct citations last summer in the Seashore's northern district. That's down from at least a two-decade high of 132 citations issued in the summer before, federal records indicated. The Seashore's 44,000 acres are divided into two districts. The northern territory covers part of Provincetown and Truro, with about 20 miles of coastline."

Justin Timberlake to launch his own brand of tequila.

First-ever humpback whale spotted in waters of Hong Kong.

Toronto University Ryerson sees spike in hate crimes.

Gay hotel chain Axel follows up hotels in Buenos Aires and Barcelona with one in Berlin.

Gizmodo's Guide to iPhone 3.0.

Birds of a feather...

SF: The Rise and Fall of a Polk Street Hustler. "I came to San Francisco because I wanted to be an artist. When I first got here, there were a lot more people. We used to play guitars and drink beers or smoke a joint and just hang out and stay out of trouble. I've been trying to protect my little self and my little brother and I'm about 500 homicides behind and I don't know how to bump and grind to pick up the little morsels and the pieces of the people I liked and loved the way I used to know how to. So I just keep on."

Dave Annable loses his shorts.

NYC's selfless subway hero/actor plays for our team according to an "imdb user who did some theatre stuff with him a number of years ago."

Only openly gay member of Brazil's legislature dies: "The Victory Fund has learned that Clodovil Hernandes, the openly gay member of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, has died. He was the only openly gay elected official in the country. Hernandes was admitted to a Brasilia hospital yesterday after suffering a stroke. Known for his colorful career as a fashion designer and television gossip show host, Hernandes represented Sao Paolo in the country’s national legislature."

Newport Beach, California police officer receives $1.2 million in damages after suing department for anti-gay harassment and refusal of promotion over sexuality: "Neil Harvey, a 27-year department veteran, alleged that he was passed over for lieutenant despite having more experience and formal education than other candidates and that former Police Chief Bob McDonell never promoted anyone perceived to be gay. Harvey's attorney, Jack Girardi, said he and his client were pleased that the jury believed Harvey was mistreated. Girardi said Harvey was looking forward to returning to his job today."

Grace Jones: My Portraits Watch Me from the Walls

Grace Jones covers the current cover of V magazine in a photo shoot by Jean-Paul Goude.

Still a visual icon after all these years, Jones talks to London's Telegraph about her home and the many portraits by famous (gay) artists that hang there.

Says Jones: "It’s like a museum. My Warhols — the ones he did of me, a series of small hamburgers, and photographs and Polaroids, because we spent so much time together. Keith Haring, Mapplethorpes, a lot of Jean-Paul [Basquiat]. They all follow you around the room, like eyes."

No doubt she has one of those delicious chocolate busts at home too.

Previously
Grace Jones: a Mass-Produced Self-Portrait in Chocolate [tr]
Jonesing for a Record in Wales [tr]

News: Joe Dallesandro, Dallas Divorce, Boy George, Oscar Chat

Police: $20 million extortion plot against John Travolta. TMZ: Not over son's photo.

Andy Warhol muse Joe Dallesandro to get "Teddy Award" at Berlin Film Festival. Committee: "Dallesandro was not only the most beautiful man in his media generation, but also put his erotic appeal out to consciously be objectified."

Chris Evans' answer to his publicist's shirtless photo ban: wear the tightest one possible.

Newsweek's Howard Fineman meets Towleroad on the DC Metro.

Texas: Gay Dallas man files state's first same-sex marriage petition.

Second NY Appeals Court rules that out-of-state marriages must be recognized: "This decision comes in the case Lewis v. Department of Civil Service and follows a landmark victory by the New York Civil Liberties Union in Martinez v. County of Monroe. Today’s decision in Lewis was issued by the Third Department and involves taxpayers who sued the state Department of Civil Service for recognizing same-sex spouses of state employees for purposes of health insurance benefits. The court affirmed that the state was following the law by granting all validly married couples eligibility for health insurance benefits."

Hey Brad, your fly is open.

Boy George settles in to prison life: "The roly poly singer scribbles on a pad during the first hours of his 15-month sentence. George, 47, is said to be terrified of attack in jail and has already angered fellow inmates by lining up a soft job in the canteen. He is set to earn £6 a week as a server, dishing out meals to lags on A Wing of HMP Pentonville in North London, where he is doing time for imprisoning and beating a rent boy."

The Obamas' first dance as first couple.

Participant in 1991 murder of Paul Broussard in Houston back behind bars.

Utah State senator Chris Buttars and gay activists break bread — literally.

Donors bail out Log Cabin Republicans.

Nathaniel at Film Experience posts a good analysis of the Oscar noms.

BBC DJ Chris Moyles insults Jews, gays with Auschwitz joke, effeminate rendition of Will Young song.

4th Circuit Court of Appeal judges rule against Alliance Defense Fund, say the city acted legally when it created a registry for same-sex couples and used the registry as a basis to provide health insurance to the partners of its gay and lesbian employees.

Britain's first openly gay judge Sir Adrian Fulford describes "bizarre and depressing" experience of applying for judicial appointment: "When he insisted that 'I would not be putting myself through this rather unpleasant process unless I really wanted to be a judge, they then directed their focus, in a somewhat dramatic way, on what may or may not happen behind my closed bedroom door'."

Proposed high school's gay-straight alliance meets resistance in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.

Gay Times: Lily Allen gone wild!

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #407

DR. SANJAY GUPTA: The new surgeon general?

ROOSTER: Forget the snooze alarm.

STATIC: Andy Warhol, Steven Spielberg, and Bianca Jagger contemplate the mysteries of TV and radio.

2008: The year in movies.

Care to Take a 15 Minute Dip?

Jason Pomeranc's new Thompson Lower East Side hotel in NYC will feature a pool painted with a filmstrip mural of Andy Warhol by Gerald Malanga. The hotel is reportedly open to guests now on a limited basis but the pool won't be open till October.

Marc Jacobs in Andy Warhol Drag Homage

Designer Marc Jacobs covers the June/July 08 issue of Interview magazine (celebrating what would have been Warhol's 80th birthday on August 6), donning false eyelashes and a classic white Warhol wig for a series of portraits that seem to shift from illustration to photograph.

Two more shots, AFTER THE JUMP...