Three-year-old twins Zyler and Kadyn Sharpe scurried around the boys and girls clothing racks of a narrow consignment store filled with toys. Zyler, wearing rainbow leggings, scrutinized a pair of hot-pink-and-purple sneakers. Kadyn, in a T-Rex shirt, fixated on a musical cube that flashed colorful lights. At a glance, the only discernible difference between these fraternal twins is their hair — Zyler’s is brown and Kadyn’s is blond.
Is Zyler a boy or a girl? How about Kadyn? That’s a question their parents, Nate and Julia Sharpe, say only the twins can decide. The Cambridge, Mass., couple represent a small group of parents raising “theybies” — children being brought up without gender designation from birth. A Facebook community for these parents currently claims about 220 members across the U.S.
“A theyby is, I think, different things to different people,” Nate Sharpe told NBC News. “For us, it means raising our kids with gender-neutral pronouns — so, ‘they,’ ‘them,’ ‘their,’ rather than assigning ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘him,’ ‘her’ from birth based on their anatomy.”
.
Kadyn, who is being raised without a gender designation, plays at a park in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Annie Tritt / for NBC News
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Labor Day to once again air his disdain for Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In a series of tweets, the president accused his attorney general of hurting Republicans’ chances in the upcoming midterm elections by obtaining indictments of two GOP lawmakers up for re-election.
“Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,” Trump tweeted. “Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff……”
The president’s comments referred to Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), who were indicted last month in two separate cases.
.
SAUL LOEB/Getty Images; Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images
President Donald Trump is once again not pleased with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Franklin’s nephew Vaughn, niece Cristal, granddaughter Victorie and grandson Jordan delivered comments, musical tributes and readings for their family’s beloved matriarch.
Jordan choked back tears as he honored his grandmother.
“Dear Grandma, I love you. I know in my heart that you’re happy now and that’s all that I care about,” he said. “Thank you for loving me. Thank you for believing in me as much as you did.”
.
ANGELA WEISS via Getty Images
Aretha Franklin’s grandchildren Jordan and Victorie Franklin embrace.
“We sincerely apologize to Aretha Franklin’s family and friends,” Jessica Santostefano, Fox News’ vice president, media desk, said in a statement. “Our intention was to honor the icon using a secondary image of her performing with Patti LaBelle in the full screen graphic, but the image of Ms. Franklin was obscured in that process, which we deeply regret.”
John Pugliano, author of “The Robots are Coming: A Human’s Survival Guide to Profiting in the Age of Automation,” sees plenty of white collar jobs that will be threatened by automation.
“Bottom line, any routine job that can easily be defined by a mathematical or logic equation will be at risk,” Pugliano said. “Opportunity will be [there] for those that can create new produces/services or solve/fix unexpected problems.”
So your accountant may not have a job in the future, but plastic surgeons and emergency room doctors should do well. And plumbers, Pugliano said, will always have work.
Meghan McCain delivered a fierce and emotional tribute to her late father, Sen. John McCain, in her eulogy at his memorial service, which also served as a powerful admonishment of the president and his political style.
Meghan McCain didn’t name President Donald Trump as she spoke at the Washington National Cathedral on Saturday, but the target of her message was clear.
“The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold,” Meghan McCain said. “She is resourceful and confident and secure. She meets her responsibilities. She speaks quietly because she is strong. America does not boast because she has no need to.
“The America of John McCain has no need to be great again because America was always great.”
.
Daughter Meghan McCain speaks at the memorial service of U.S. Senator John McCain at National Cathedral in Washington, on Sept. 1, 2018.Chris Wattie / Reuters
There are oh-so-many studies and expert opinions evaluating the ways our parenting choices affect our kids and oh-so-few considering how we grown-ups will fare. Read enough of them, and you’ll be misled to believe that parents are fixed entities with little capacity to feel or grow.
This is particularly the case when it comes to time management. We’re told that children need lots of unstructured time, and it’s up to us to cultivate it. But we’re also told that children need to be challenged and inspired, and it’s up to us to arrange it. So off we go to karate and violin and religious school and soccer and dance, while making sure there is enough time in there for wandering in the woods or building a treehouse, or whatever else passes for low-pressure character-building these days.
.
As a parent of a 5- and a 1-year-old, I’m fairly new to the scheduling trenches. And yet a small voice has emerged, a faint chant from the back of my brain, repeating: Where do my needs fit into all this?
.
Parents are “thinking about what works for the kids, but they also need to think about what works for them,” an author says.
The palm beach of Vai (Greek: Βάι) is one of the largest attractions of the Mediterranean island of Crete. It features the largest natural palm forest in Europe, made up of Cretan Date Palm (Phoenix theophrasti).
For tourism Vai was discovered at the beginning of the 1970s by Richard White and friends from North London, Belfast and Bavaria, at the end of that decade it was popularised by the last hippies who fled the hot-spots Matala and Preveli. At the beginning of the 1980s Vai was full of backpacker tourists from the whole world, leading to a mixture of chaotic campground and garbage dump. Vai was enclosed and declared as a protected area. The unique forest recovered, the beach became clean.
The palm beach, which belongs to the Moni Toplou, is the touristic center of East Crete, with thousands of visitors each year. Vai lies close to Palekastro, Sitia and the Dionysades islands.
This is how bad things are in the Catholic Church right now: The Pope’s top adviser on clergy sexual abuse canceled a trip to Ireland for a papal event because he has to investigate sexual misconduct in his own seminary.
And Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, isn’t alone. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, another key papal ally embroiled in the sex abuse crisis, has also canceled his appearance at next week’s World Meeting of Families, a spokesman told CNN.
One day after President Trump stripped former CIA director John Brennan of his security clearance, the commander of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden said it would be an honor if the president would take away his clearance next.
William H. McRaven, a retired four-star admiral who as head of the U.S. Special Operations Command oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid, directly addressed Trump in a Washington Post op-ed published online Thursday.
In the op-ed, McRaven, who retired from the Navy in 2014, described Brennan as “a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.”
.
William H. McRaven, a retired four-star admiral who oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid, testifies before Congress in 2013. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
.
The palm beach of Vai
.
