OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 12, 2023--

Australians will vote on Oct. 14 in a referendum that would enshrine in the nation’s constitution a mechanism for Indigenous people to advise Parliament on policies that effect their lives known as the Voice

The Miami Marlins are now 10 games over .500, but they've done it in the most unconventional way.For the first time since 2011, when they were still named the Florida Marlins, the Miami Marlins are 10 games over .500, standing at 42-32.But none of it really makes sense.Not only does...

A Gothic artist has dedicated an entire room in her house into a "shrine" for her "creepy doll" collection, as she believes it “makes life so much more interesting and fun”. Victoria Grossman, 53, began collecting Barbie dolls in her 20s, and since watching the horror film Annabelle she “became fascinated with creepy dolls,” so began collecting and creating them – she has sold more than 400 of her handmade dolls. Victoria has spent a staggering £19,000 on her collection, which includes over 300 dolls made from “porcelain with Gothic painted features”, which she hopes people think are “haunted” – her favourite frightening figurine is a hand-painted Wednesday Addams. Victoria’s dolls typically have “mysterious eyes”, Victorian style clothes and “menacing expressions”, and despite their scary appearance her loved ones are “big fans” of her collection. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Victoria’s creations have been featured in a movie, Dementia 13, after a producer approached her at a doll convention and bought three dolls. Victoria said it was “amazing to see them on screen”. “Collecting just makes life so much more interesting and fun – I could not see a life without collecting,” Victoria told PA Real Life. “I love the hunt and love displaying them – I want to see my stuff, I want people to see them and get inspired, and maybe start a collection of whatever turns them on.” Victoria began collecting Barbie dolls in her 20s, building a collection of more than 200 figurines, but this eventually turned into a fascination with creepy dolls. She said: “One day, I saw this Gothic doll on the television, and I thought it was so different and, being an artist, I wanted to recreate the doll – so, I did, and it was great, but I didn’t think much of it. “It wasn’t until I saw Annabelle, the horror movie, in 2014, that I became fascinated with creepy dolls. “I decided to recreate her, and I put her up on eBay, and it sold for like 120 dollars to someone in Las Vegas, and then I started to collect creepy dolls.” Over time, Victoria has accumulated over 300 horrifying dolls worth approximately £19,000 ($25,000) and keeps the majority of them on display in her studio. She said: “I’m not into anything gory – I like them to look artistically creepy as if you have found them in an attic, and I want people to think they’re haunted dolls. “Most of them are porcelain with Gothic painted features like mysterious eyes, Victorian style clothes, menacing expressions.” Victoria’s loved ones are very supportive of her unusual collection, she said: “My son has grown up with it, so he doesn’t think much of it, but he loves them; he thinks they are really cool. “When people come to the house, they instantly want to see the doll room or doll shrine, and my family always want to bring their friends over to show them off. “They all love to take pictures of them, they’re big fans – it’s the same at conventions. As well as frightening dolls, Victoria also has a collection of celebrity memorabilia worth more than £78,000 ($100,000). She said: “I have Barbra Streisand’s vanity, which is gigantic and beautiful. “One of my prized possessions is Madonna’s jewellery which she wore on the Like A Virgin album cover – I have the pin that’s on her bustier and the bracelet from the inside cover. “I used to go to Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses in New York for celebrity items in my twenties and thirties.” Alongside collecting, Victoria continued making dolls, which she sells for £118 ($150) apiece online and at conventions. She explained the process: “So the base is a regular porcelain doll, and you put a base paint on them, maybe some crackling on their face to make it look old and weathered. “I often paint on top of their eyes, especially when I’m making it into a character, like Pennywise from the movie It. “I make the clothes by hand – for example, when I made Wednesday Addams, which is my favourite doll that I own, I handmade all of her clothes and stockings, braided her hair, and painted on make-up.” Victoria has sold more than 400 dolls to date and has customers all over the world. She said: “I had no idea it was such a popular thing – I started taking them to conventions, and they did really well, I made the equivalent of £500. “One of my clients has around 40 of my dolls – it’s addictive, you can’t just have one. “Most of my customers buy the dolls for their Halloween display and end up adding to their collection and become full-on collectors.” Victoria’s dolls have even been featured in a movie – she explained: “When I was at a convention, a producer came up to me and said, ‘I love your dolls, I would love to put them in a movie’, and I just thought he was kidding. “But, they later came to the house, and they bought three dolls – they starred in a movie called Dementia 13 in 2017, it was amazing to see them on screen.” Looking to the future, Victoria is hoping to extend her collection to reborn dolls – dolls which are hyperrealistic portrayals of babies. She said: “To buy reborn realistic dolls is usually over $1,000, but I’d love to sculpt one and make an entire doll out of clay – I wouldn’t treat it like a baby like some people do, though.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Endy Rodríguez hit his first major league homer, five Pittsburgh pitchers combined on a five-hitter and the Pirates defeated the Los Angeles Angels 3-0 to snap their four-game winning streak

Chris Hemsworth said that he had been shaky when director Sam Hargrave first introduced the concepts to him, but later the excitement kicked in

Ryan Mason played down fears about the future of Tottenham vice-captain Harry Kane after a disappointing 3-1 home loss to Brentford. Kane’s 30th goal in all competitions put Spurs ahead after eight minutes, but the visitors turned the game around after the break through Bryan Mbeumo’s double and Yoane Wissa’s late goal. It ensured Tottenham suffered a 14th defeat of a poor campaign in their final home fixture, which ended with the players doing a lap of honour in front of largely empty seats. Vice-captain Kane waved to the fans who had stayed and uncertainty remains over his future with only one more year left on his deal at Spurs. But Mason insisted: “He waves at the crowd every season. “I remember sitting here two years ago and you guys were convinced he was leaving, saying the same thing. “It’s the last home game of the season so he wants to show his appreciation to the support he’s received and we’ve all received this season.” Spurs had impressed during the opening 45 and Son Heung-min, Emerson Royal, Arnaut Danjuma and Dejan Kulusevski all went close before half-time. No second goal occurred for the hosts and Mbeumo’s quickfire brace after the break proved crucial. Mason added: “This is the Premier League. You have to be ready for the whole game. “I thought the first half we played a very good match, had a few opportunities to score a couple more, but of course in the second half the intensity dropped and we were punished.” Back-to-back defeats have damaged Tottenham’s hopes of securing European football next season and there were further chants for chairman Daniel Levy to leave during his latest loss. Mason admitted it hurt to see so many fans depart before the lap of honour but urged the club to commit to a philosophy this summer in its search for a new head coach and managing director of football. “Of course (it hurts). It is understandable because of how probably the second two-thirds of the season have gone on and off the pitch but ultimately we know the fans will be there next season,” Spurs’ acting head coach insisted. “This club will keep moving forward and now is the time where we need to be stronger than ever and believe in what we’re going to do, commit to it and have people that are committed to it. “And I always say in football things can change very quickly and the energy can change quickly. “There are many different conversations that need to happen, but ultimately, I have said it quite a bit, we need to commit to something and be consistent with it. “Then have people, staff and players here who are committed to it too and I think that transfers to everyone else. That is what we need.” Brentford were able to toast a milestone victory that means they have now defeated each member of the ‘big six’ during their first two seasons in the Premier League. This fine win also ensured the Bees’ finished a difficult week on a high note after 20-goal forward Ivan Toney was hit with an eight month ban from all football activity on Thursday for repeated betting breaches. “I think it is unbelievable and remarkable,” Frank said of Brentford’s top-six feat. “For a newly promoted team over two seasons to beat all of the top-six teams must be quite unique so yes, of course we’re proud of that. “We’ve already talked about (Ivan). To replace 20 goals in the Premier League is not easy but we actually have good players in the squad that can score goals and every single time Wissa is playing instead of Ivan he scores goals. “He did that today and Kevin, he will score goals because he is such a threat going in behind. “Of course the big praise is to Bryan today. He is growing more and more to be a key player for us.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Jon Rahm struggles in heavy rain at start of third round of US PGA Championship Cecilia Braekhus pulls out of Terri Harper fight through illness Emma Hayes won’t spend sunny Sunday evening watching potential WSL title decider

Japan bond bears are turning their attention to Friday’s inflation data, the next potential catalyst for speculation about

Women in Sudan's few remaining maternity wards are having babies to the sound of gunfire.

A recent book called The Queer Parent, written by Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley, calmly opens with the line: “Ninety per cent of queer parenting is simply… parenting”. It’s a fair point. Whether you’re male, female or non-binary, single or partnered, and regardless of your sexuality, all of us who parent aim to meet the exact same needs for our children, day in, day out. The title caught my attention because I think there’s something very timely and profound about the act of being a gay or queer parent today. It’s doing the work that many (dare I say most) people want to see in society – namely raising a new generation of non-toxic humans, making the world a happier place to be different – but in the slow grind of parenthood, not just in the quick flash of activism. I really believe gay and queer parents are changing the world, in a very deep yet unsexy way. Mum and mummy being at the school gate, dad and daddy collecting a child from nursery, or as we’ll get into, dad giving birth to a baby son or daughter. They’re changing the world by being active, visible and engaged parents. But there’s a slightly awkward, under-discussed aspect to this that has truly got under my skin in the eight years since I’ve been a parent. I’m pansexual, so I fancy men as well as women, non-binary people and pans. But oddly I’ve always been frightened to talk about parenthood with most of my avowedly gay male friends – because I’m never quite sure if anyone’s going to derogatorily refer to me as a “breeder” or not. It’s hard to know how well-known the term “breeder” is. I personally used to hear it a lot more back in the mid-Noughties when I was in my early twenties. It’s essentially a slightly bitchy term that’s interchangeably derogatory to people with kids and/or straight people as a whole. As a word, it’s a pretty effective zinger. Straight people have tended to use sexual imagery to define and denigrate gay people. It seems fair that gay people would do the same to heterosexuals. “Breeder” reduces the pleasures of sex to a slightly dehumanised process. In fact, unconnected to sexuality, Gulliver’s Travels author Jonathan Swift used the term to reduce people to a brutal, almost farmyard functionality in a satirical essay from 1729. It’s important to establish that I’m not here to spank gay men on the bum. Neither am I here to accuse them of “heterophobia” either – which I’ve put in quote marks because I’m dubious that it can even exist as a concept. If I was an exclusively gay guy, I might robustly define my sexuality against heteronormativity in ways which could be punchy and sharp. I might also – by virtue of a lifetime of homophobia and trauma that may have started in the home as a child – have latently negative views about the whole concept of family. But I am who I am now, and despite understanding all this, I’m still getting weary of it as a trope, and also as a reason not to talk about the many genuine ecstasies of parenthood. I like being a dad and I like dating guys. These things shouldn’t be so controversial – yet weirdly, I find it’s gay men who have more slack-jawed incomprehension of these two facts than any other group in society. My own personal beef is very trifling in the scheme of things, however. The much bigger picture is that – newsflash – gay, queer and trans people have kids. Loads of them. While data is limited, there was a 40 per cent rise in same-sex parents from 2015 to 2019. Anecdotally, it seems to be a much greater phenomenon than is reported. The same goes for the rarely examined hardships LGBT+ people typically go through to even have kids: namely the incredible anguish of IVF and the epic emotional journey of surrogacy. You’d expect increased visibility of gay and queer parents would have phased out the use of the word “breeder” as a pejorative, but weirdly it lives on – especially on TikTok where, perhaps like an unkillable echo of my own twenties, it’s mostly young people using the word as a way of defining their queerness and riling up straights. What makes my heart sink, beyond knowing that a younger generation is using the same dumb-ass words people said 20 years ago, is that this is a really, really bad time to start being unsupportive of gay parents. While queer visibility may feel greater than ever, the world is going backwards in many respects. Even just in the realm of children’s culture, things as harmless as a drag artist reading stories can draw an angry mob of culture warriors – as happened at Tate Britain in London in February. Look at Florida – once the home of fictional queer icons The Golden Girls, now home to Republican governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis – and you’ll see books with titles as benign as This Book Is Gay banned as a result of his vociferously “anti-woke” legislation. We all know that creating this type of hostile environment will surely result in more bullying, more hatred, more lives blighted. While queer visibility may feel greater than ever, the world is going backwards in many respects It’s pathetic, cruel yet grimly successful at the same time. With every small news story or stunt, a palpable hostility festers. Thus anything that drives a wedge between gay/queer people and parenthood is a bad look right now – especially with elections looming in the US and Britain that I fear will see the issue of gender identity playing a huge, calculatedly divisive role. What better way to rebuff this negativity than by strongly standing up for gay and queer parents. Specifically, we could start standing up for men having babies. Trans men like the British journalist Freddy McConnell who a few years back gave birth to a child who seems to be doing great (and likes a good splash in the sea), or Iowa-born Tanius Posey, who thankfully was able to breastfeed his child despite simultaneously getting online abuse for it. Logan Brown, also from the UK, is a trans man who has been documenting his pregnancy over the past few months with genuine clarity and candour. He gave birth to his daughter Nova just over a week ago. Celebrated gay NYC artist Keith Haring frequently placed a baby into his work, a shining symbol of hope and playful optimism for the future. Maybe in the same spirit as Haring, we could all do with a new beginning in our attitudes to gay and queer parenting, inspired by a rather miraculous baby such as Nova. 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Only one match was played in the 2023 Leagues Cup, Round of 16, but if you were into amazing-looking goals, own goals, and a penalty shootout, then you had it all in the Inter Miami vs. FC Dallas match.This was, for sure, a great way to start off the 2023 Leagues Cup Round of 16 matches.Inter Mi...

By Panu Wongcha-um, Poppy McPherson and Ananda Teresia BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand's caretaker government is proposing to "fully re-engage" Myanmar's military