White Collar has been renewed for a second season, according to reports.

The Hollywood Reporter says that the programme’s creator and executive producer Jeff Eastin announced the news on his Twitter page.

White Collar is a USA Network crime comedy-drama television series created by Jeff Eastin, starring Matt Bomer as con-man Neal Caffrey and Tim DeKay as Special Agent Peter Burke. It premiered on October 23, 2009. White Collar concluded its Friday episodes on December 4 and is on a brief hiatus before returning on Tuesday evenings, beginning January 19, 2010.

Neal Caffrey (Matthew Bomer) is a con-man who was captured after a three-year game of cat-and-mouse. With three months left while serving a four-year sentence, he escapes from a maximum security federal prison to find Kate, his ex-girlfriend. Peter Burke, the FBI agent who captured Caffrey, catches him again. This time, Caffrey gives Burke information about evidence in another case; however, this information comes with a price: Burke must have a meeting with Caffrey. At this meeting, Caffrey proposes a deal: he will help Burke catch other criminals as part of a work-release program. Burke agrees, after some hesitation. Within a day of being released from prison, Caffrey already lives in one of the most expensive houses in Manhattan, after persuading an elderly widow to rent him her guest room. After catching the elusive Dutchman, Caffrey has proven to Burke that he will help him, and that he will not try to escape again. However, at the same time, Caffrey is still looking for Kate, whom he believes is in trouble.

By Catriona Wightman (www.digitalspy.com)

White Collar has been renewed for a second season, according to reports. The Hollywood Reporter says that the programme’s creator and executive producer Jeff Eastin announced the news on his Twitter page. White Collar is a USA Network crime comedy-drama television series created by Jeff Eastin, starring Matt Bomer as con-man Neal Caffrey and Tim [...]

The search interest in Jeans pictures is increasing. Here  are several pictures of cute  twinks wearing jeans. Enjoy!

more pictures of twinks in jeans after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The search interest in Jeans pictures is increasing. Here  are several pictures of cute  twinks wearing jeans. Enjoy! more pictures of twinks in jeans after the jump.

Jose Maria di Bello, left, and Alex Freyre were married Monday in the state of Tierra del Fuego.

Alex Freyre and Jose Maria di Bello

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) — Less than one month after a Buenos Aires court derailed the marriage of Alex Freyre and Jose Maria di Bello, the couple wed Monday at the southern tip of Argentina, making it the first same-sex marriage in Latin America.

“As a couple, we dreamed of marrying for a long time,” Freyre told the state-run Telam news agency.

Their marriage was hailed as a victory by gay rights groups in Argentina, though it was unknown whether the legality of their marriage would face any challenges.

After a legal battle earlier this year, a court in the capital, Buenos Aires, ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage was illegal and ordered the proper authorities to grant the couple a marriage license if they applied for one.

On the eve of their December 1 wedding, however, another court filed an injunction, putting the brakes on the nuptials.

In Argentina, the issue of same-sex marriage is decided on the local and state level.

So Freyre and di Bello went to the southernmost state of Tierra del Fuego, where a pro-gay marriage governor welcomed the event, Telam reported.

To read more, please go to http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/12/28/argentina.gay.marriage/

Photo from www.daylife.com

Alex Freyre and Jose Maria di Bello Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) — Less than one month after a Buenos Aires court derailed the marriage of Alex Freyre and Jose Maria di Bello, the couple wed Monday at the southern tip of Argentina, making it the first same-sex marriage in Latin America. “As a couple, we [...]

The Sex and the City 2 trailer is here. Sex and the City fans have waited for months, and the first Sex and the City 2 teaser trailer has finally been released. Though the movie won’t come out till late spring, the first teaser trailer was released to get the hype machine going for Sex and the City 2. It’s sure to become another success just from the fans of the franchise, but it has been given a late spring release to ensure that it brings in some of that summer movie money.
By Spokane Movie Examiner, Ryan Gamble (www.examiner.com)

The Sex and the City 2 trailer is here. Sex and the City fans have waited for months, and the first Sex and the City 2 teaser trailer has finally been released. Though the movie won’t come out till late spring, the first teaser trailer was released to get the hype machine going for Sex [...]

More than 10 gay websites in China have been recently forced to close or had their accounts deleted by their server hosting companies, an NGO said on Thursday.

“Some of the hosting service providers even told us that gay chatting was illegal,” said Geng Le, the webmaster of a gay website in Beijing.

The Chinese Association of HIV/AIDS NGOs, which was founded by 165 NGOs in China, made the statement on Wednesday. It also said they would provide free legal aid to those webmasters.

“More than 20 lawyers in our institute can provide legal aid to those webmasters for free. If the case does not happen in Beijing, we can transfer it to other NGOs,” said Lan Yujiao, an official in Aizhixing Institute, an NGO for protecting the legal rights of special groups in Beijing.

Lan said free legal aid is not only available for gay webmasters, but also HIV/AIDS carriers and special groups who are discriminated in their daily lives.

“We have provided free legal aid to three webmasters in China this year, one of which was in Beijing,” Lan said.

A webmaster surnamed Chen, whose gay website in Beijing was been closed by a web hosting company, said the company had told him gay websites might hold immoral information and pornographic literature.

“I would bet that most gay websites are more ‘clean and healthy’ than websites not closed by the government,” he said.

“As a gay webmaster, we are more careful about all the information on the website, because we want to remove the prejudice on the gay group. We want to let them know we are healthy.”

Yesterday was his website’s 10th anniversary. He said he originally planned to celebrate the day. But now, he just worries about how long the website can exist.

According to Geng, some webmasters of gay websites have been forced to host their websites on foreign servers.

read more at China daily

More than 10 gay websites in China have been recently forced to close or had their accounts deleted by their server hosting companies, an NGO said on Thursday. “Some of the hosting service providers even told us that gay chatting was illegal,” said Geng Le, the webmaster of a gay website in Beijing. The Chinese [...]

Spanish model Jon Kortajarena’s new photoshoot in the Spring 2010 campaign for Matinique Blue Label

More pictures after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spanish model Jon Kortajarena’s new photoshoot in the Spring 2010 campaign for Matinique Blue Label More pictures after the jump.

By Christine Laskowski (China Daily)

As the year 2009 comes to a close, it does so having been a monumental year for China’s LGBT community. Beijing and numerous cities across China experienced the successful completion of 12 anniversaries and public events that expose LGBT culture and related issues like never before.

Participants and organizers smile for Shanghai Pride.

China’s LGBT community, which is an acronym that refers to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, has adapted the terms tongzhi to refer to gays, lala for lesbians, ku’er for queer – an umbrella term for those who do not identify as heterosexual with regard to sexuality, sexual anatomy or gender identity.

The community is young. Most are in their 20s and 30s, are educated, working professionals with experience abroad who are now highly active and public organizers, authors, editors, designers, film directors, curators, activists and artists.

One catalyst was the Olympic Games in 2008, a landmark event that many in the LGBT community have interpreted as a “coming out” event. LGBT websites have allowed for communities to build, to advertise events, and to allow contact and information to be exchanged between LGBT members from big cities and small towns in China with those from around the world.

As one of the organizers of China’s first gay pride events and editor for shanghaiist.com, Kenneth Tan, puts it: “Gay people, young and old, are now coming out en masse. These people are all what I call ‘first generation queers’.”

Policies, too, have been slowly changing. At a national level, 1997 saw the removal of sodomy from the country’s list of crimes; homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders in 2001; and since 2003 prominent sexologist and activist, Li Yinhe, has been proposing same-sex marriage legislation at the annual Two Sessions.

In China, where LGBT-themed films are prohibited and gay-themed exhibitions, novels and magazines are taboo, the success of many of these events have been years in the making. Organizers have gotten creative: they arrange other activities; they hold their film festivals and art exhibitions just outside major cities; they keep publicity to a minimum.

So with all this happening, what does the future hold for China’s LGBT community? Li Yinhe has revealed plans to propose another same-sex marriage bill in 2010. And in a nation without ratings, perhaps introducing them to TV shows and films, will help lift the ban on gay and lesbian characters on screen. Perhaps China will witness the coming-out of its first celebrity.

Yet among all involved to promote awareness and to end discrimination, there seems to be a consensus: they have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.

Look back China’s major LGBT events in 2009

Feb 14: Qianmen Valentine’s Day Photo Shoot, Beijing

May 17: Rainbow In Motion Bike Ride, Beijing

June 7-13: Pride, Shanghai

June 14-21: Difference Gender Art Exhibition, Beijing

June 17: Fourth Beijing International Queer Film Festival

June 28: PFLAG China’s 2nd anniversary, Guangzhou

July 27-Aug 2: The World Outgames, Copenhagen – Chinese delegation attended

August: Courage by Xiao Jie

August: iLOOK magazine’s “Happy Gay China” Issue

October-November : China Queer Film Talk Tour

Nov 20-22: 3rd Annual Lala Camp, Guilin, Guanxi
Read more about each event at Chinadaily

By Christine Laskowski (China Daily) As the year 2009 comes to a close, it does so having been a monumental year for China’s LGBT community. Beijing and numerous cities across China experienced the successful completion of 12 anniversaries and public events that expose LGBT culture and related issues like never before. China’s LGBT community, which [...]

Long-awaited passage of bill tops a week of new LGBT gains at federal level

By Lisa Keen
Keen News Service

Suddenly, with little fanfare or notice, the signs of ”change” for the LGBT community are beginning to appear in Washington. The Obama administration this week unveiled several new initiatives aimed at eliminating discrimination against LGBT people. The Ryan White AIDS assistance program was re-authorized for another four years. And Congress on Thursday gave final approval to a long-sought measure to help fight hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Senate voted 68 to 29 on Thursday evening, October 22, to approve the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010, a defense funding bill to which the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act had been attached in July. The House had given its final approval earlier this month.

There was some hostility expressed, even at this late point, for including the hate crimes provision in the funding bill. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said during floor debate Thursday that he ”strongly disagrees” with the measure in the bill because it is ”non-germane, non-relevant.”

”What we are doing here is an abuse of the senate process,” said McCain. The statement, of course, ignored years of non-germane amendments offered by Republican senators seeking anti-gay measures. But McCain insisted those past non-germane amendments were ”nothing of the magnitude” of the hate crimes measure.

McCain said he was also opposed to the hate crimes measure itself because ”I do not believe an expansion of the federal criminal code is necessary to cover a certain class of citizens from – quote – perceived injustices,” he said, gesturing the sign for quotation marks around his use of the words ‘perceived injustices.’

McCain and Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) suggested the attachment of hate crimes to the DOD funding bill was an effort to avoid debate on the controversial measure. Sessions said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ”insisted” the hate crimes measure be attached to the DOD authorization bill.

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, refuted the arguments, noting that the Senate has adopted hate crimes legislation on a DOD funding bill three times before and that it voted specifically on the current hate crimes measure during consideration of the proposal to attach it to the DOD funding bill.

The Senate first voted 64 to 35 on Thursday on a procedural motion allowing the Senate to proceed to consideration of the bill. Republicans voting for ”cloture” included Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, Ohio Senator George Voinovich, and Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. The lone Democrat voting against cloture was Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) did not vote.

The hate crimes provision accounts for about $5 million worth of funding inside the $681 billion defense bill.

The bill now goes to the president’s desk, where President Obama is expected to sign it next week. Efforts to pass the measure in the past had been hampered by promises that then President George W. Bush would veto it.

www.metroweekly.com

Long-awaited passage of bill tops a week of new LGBT gains at federal level By Lisa Keen Keen News Service Suddenly, with little fanfare or notice, the signs of ”change” for the LGBT community are beginning to appear in Washington. The Obama administration this week unveiled several new initiatives aimed at eliminating discrimination against LGBT [...]

The NBA’s premier point guard demonstrates why a down vest is that one piece of winterwear no man on the go should ever go without.

It was a Cinderella story to rival even the Celtics’ bottom-to-top run: After two years of slumming it in Oklahoma City, the New Orleans Hornets return to their home arena, where a 23-year-old point guard ignites the court and saves the franchise from permanent relocation. And while Chris Paul may not have carried his team as far as Allen, Pierce, Garnett, and company, 2008 was the year he officially stole the title of most dazzling point guard in the league from Steve Nash. And there’s that Olympic gold, too. Here, Paul looks back. Read the rest of this entry »

The NBA’s premier point guard demonstrates why a down vest is that one piece of winterwear no man on the go should ever go without. It was a Cinderella story to rival even the Celtics’ bottom-to-top run: After two years of slumming it in Oklahoma City, the New Orleans Hornets return to their home arena, [...]