Local
Creigh Deeds in critical condition after stabbing
Former Virginia gubernatorial candidate’s son attacked him at Bath County home
Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath County) remains in critical condition at a Charlottesville hospital after his son stabbed him on Tuesday. (Photo by Waldo Jaquith/Wikimedia Commons)
Authorities said Austin “Gus” Deeds stabbed his father at his Millboro home shortly before 7:30 a.m. They said the younger Deeds fatally shot himself after the attack.
Corinne Geller, a spokesperson for the Virginia State Police, told reporters during a Charlottesville press conference that Deeds has been able to speak with authorities.
“The investigation obviously remains ongoing,” Geller said.
Deeds, who has represented the 25th Senate District in Richmond since 2001, was the Democratic candidate for governor in 2009. Outgoing Gov. Bob McDonnell defeated him by a 59-41 percent margin.
The Bath County Democrat in January voted for a bill that would have banned discrimination against LGBT state employees. Deeds the same month supported gay Richmond Circuit Court Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland’s judgeship the state Senate approved.
He backed a measure during the 2013 Legislative session that would have strengthened anti-bullying measures in the commonwealth. Deeds also opposed a bill that McDonnell signed into law in March that banned Virginia’s public colleges and universities from discriminating against any student group based on their religious and political beliefs.
Deeds received a 100 percent score on Equality Virginia’s 2012 legislative scorecard.
“In this tough and sad time, our thoughts and prayers are with the Deeds family,” McDonnell said in a statement. “The news from this morning is utterly heartbreaking.”
Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe, who lost to Deeds in the 2009 Democratic gubernatorial primary, said both he and his wife “are praying for the Deeds family at this difficult time.”
State Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) told the Washington Blade he is “shocked” by the incident.
“Creigh is one of the nicest, most pleasant people in Richmond,” Ebbin said. “It’s just unimaginable that this has happened to him. It’s just like a bad dream. I can’t believe it.”
The Blade will have more information and reaction as it becomes available.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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