CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M PRO SPORTS
Four indicted in defrauding NBA players a collective $13M

A former adviser at investment bank Morgan Stanley was one of four people arrested Thursday in two separate schemes that reportedly defrauded several current and former NBA players, according to the Justice Department. 

 Bastian Kienitz/Shutterstock

March 23 (UPI) -- A former adviser at investment bank Morgan Stanley was one of four people arrested Thursday in two separate schemes that reportedly defrauded several current and former NBA players, according to the Justice Department.

The indictment unsealed Thursday does not refer to the player and former players by name, who were collectively bilked out of $13 million.

Jrue Holiday, currently a guard for the Milwaukee Bucks, as well as former players Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee are reportedly among the victims.

Former Morgan Stanley adviser Darryl Cohen was arrested in California Thursday morning, as was his alleged co-conspirator, Brian Gilder.

Charles Briscoe, a former NBA agent, was arrested in Katy, Texas, while officials took Calvin Darden Jr. into custody in Atlanta, Ga.

All four men were scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday afternoon.

Prosecutors contend the four men enticed the players and former players to transfer payments into their control, which were then used for unauthorized personal uses.

Cohen and Gilder reportedly convinced three athletes to purchase life insurance policies, unknowingly at heavily marked up prices. Investigators contend the policies were sold through a law firm with ties to Gilder, netting the two about $5 million.

Gilder allegedly used some of the proceeds to pay off a mortgage, while Cohen, who worked at Morgan Stanley between 2015 and 2021, carried out extensive renovations to his home.

Darden Jr., previously pled guilty to wire fraud in the Southern District of New York. He is accused of convincing a player to send him $7 million to help fund the purchase of a women's basketball team, and then spending the money on personal expenses.

Briscoe, the former agent, is accused of forging documents, including contracts to fraudulently obtain money from players.

Stanford graduate student creates 'Collyge' video app to replace TikTok


As lawmakers, including Rep. Kat Camamck, R-Fla., grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Capitol Hill Thursday, a Stanford graduate student and his partners announced the creation of the "Collyge" app, which seeks to replace TikTok on college campuses. 

Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo


March 23 (UPI) -- As the House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew Thursday, a Stanford graduate student and his partners announced the creation of a social media platform that they say could replace TikTok for college students.

Ian Gunther, a Stanford varsity gymnast and high profile social media commentator on gymnastics, has been developing the "Collyge" app for two years in partnership with Connyct Inc, a technology platform that develops short-form video functionality.

Data from the Collyge app is encrypted and kept on servers in the U.S., keystrokes are not logged, sensitive user data is not stored, and only public-facing information is tracked, according to a press release from Connyct Thursday.

"Collyge creates an environment for my university peers to socialize in a safe and private manner with short-form video -- just as they are accustomed to do with TikTok," says Gunther.

"Collyge's key features were specifically designed for students while protecting its users from prying eyes. Most importantly, we do not monetize Collyge's user data; we keep it private. It's that simple," he continued.

Connyct CEO Warren Cohn said, "Collyge enables students to safely connect with each other without fear of others intruding, such as parents or future employers."

"As TikTok is banned on campuses throughout the country. We intend to be a short-form video replacement that's safe for consumption and build in the USA," he continued.

RELATEDTikTok updates community guidelines ahead of U.S. Congressional hearing

On Capitol Hill Thursday, Chew said "there are more than 150 million Americans who love our platform, and we know we have a responsibility to protect them."

Lawmakers were unimpressed by Chew's claims that TikTok plans to section off its U.S. information from the rest of the company.

"I still believe that the Beijing communist government will still control and have the ability to influence what you do," said Rep Frank Pallone, D-N.J.

BIDEN'S FIRST VETO
House Republicans fail to overturn Biden veto on social governance rule


House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and his conference failed

 to overturn President Joe Biden's first veto on Thursday. 

Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo


March 23 (UPI) -- House Republicans on Thursday failed to override President Joe Biden's veto of a bill that would have prevented retirement fund managers from considering social factors when making investments.

The 219-200 vote fell far short of the two-thirds needed to overcome the president's veto.

House Republicans had passed the bill as a way to take aim at environmental and social governance, or ESG, strategies. The Labor Department passed a rule last year that makes it easier for retirement plans to take into account climate change and other social factors.

Republicans have said that it is unfair to certain companies, including in the oil and gas industry, and can be bad for investors. The bill passed the Senate last week with Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., joining with all Republicans to vote yes.

However, Biden had said he would veto the bill before it even passed the House.

"Retirement plan fiduciaries should be able to consider any factor that maximizes financial returns for retirees across the country," he said before the House voted no the bill, according to USA Today. "That is not controversial -- that is common sense."

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that his chamber would continue to vote fight against the rule.

"House Republicans will keep fighting to overturn this rule allowing ESG investing and to make sure Americans are getting the best retirement they can, not the most woke," he wrote in his weekly floor lookout, according to ABC News.

Coin minted by Brutus after assassination of Julius Caesar repatriated to Greece


A gold coin commemorating the assassination of Julius Caesar, minted just two years after the death of the Roman leader, fetched a record-breaking high bid of $3.5 million at an auction in Britain. File Photo courtesy of the Numismatic Guaranty Corp.

March 23 (UPI) -- A coin minted by the Roman politician Brutus after the assassination of Julius Caesar has been returned to Greece after an investigation by Homeland Security agents and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

The Eid Mar coins are so named to commemorate Julius Caesar's assassination in Rome, Italy, on March 15 in the year 44 B.C., a date now known as the Ides of March. It was not immediately clear why the coin was repatriated to Greece and not to Italy.

Brutus had the coins minted in two editions, a silver edition to be used as currency and a gold edition as a token for Roman officials. There are only three gold Eid Mar coins known to still exist.

One of those three coins was sold for $3.5 million an auction by Roma Numismatics to an anonymous collector, UPI previously reported.

The other two coins are in the collection of the Deutsche Bundesbank and on loan to the British Museum, Numismatic News reported in 2020 after the sale.

However, Richard Beale -- the owner of Roma Numismatics -- was arrested in New York in January on charges stemming from that sale, according to arrest warrants obtained by ARTNews at the time.

Beale reportedly acquired the coin in 2014 from Italian coin dealer Italo Vecchi, a consultant for Beale who previously had his own similar troubles after he was caught with a trove of Greek coins trying to enter the United States in 1992.

Vecchi has not been charged in relation to the Beale case.

The duo spent several years trying to create fake documents of the coin's provenance, a word used in the art world to describe a trace of how an artwork or artifact became acquired by an individual or institution as it changed hands over the years.

Beale made several attempts to try to sell the coin and eventually had it authenticated by the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation, a coin grading service based in Florida.

"In 2020, NGC received an 'EID MAR' aureus for evaluation from a London-based auction firm and after extensive study determined it was authentic," an NGC spokesperson said in a statement to ARTnews.

"A coin's authenticity and grade are matters separate and distinct from provenance. It is not common practice for NGC to opine on the provenance of a coin, and it did not do so here."

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the repatriation of the coin along with 28 other artifacts believed to have been looted from Greece.

"On behalf of the Hellenic Government, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to congratulate and thank the Manhattan District Attorney's Office," Greece's Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, said in a statement.

"The close relationship and cooperation that has been built over the last years between Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Hellenic Republic, guarantees that many more successes will follow."

Equinor's latest North Sea drilling campaign finds no fossil fuels


After coming up empty at a well near the Visund field, Equinor will move a drilling facility to the Vigdis oil field in the North Sea. Photo courtesy of Andre Osmundsen/Equinor

March 24 (UPI) -- Norwegian energy major Equinor had no luck in finding fossil fuels in an unproven area of the North Sea, the government's energy regulator said Friday.

Equinor was drilling a so-called wildcat well, a well drilled into an area not previously known to contain hydrocarbons, near the Visund oil and gas field.

Visund began production in the late 1990s as a largely oil reservoir, though the reserve has been yielding more natural gas this decade.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the nation's energy regulator, said the well results showed "poor to good" quality, but it was determined the well was dry with no commercial reserves.

RELATED Norway's Equinor pays $850 million to buy Suncor Energy U.K.

This was the seventh exploration well drilled in an area opened up to energy companies in 2009. Equinor will now move its drilling facility to a development well at the Vigdis oil field in the North Sea.

For February, the NPD said that both crude oil and natural gas production came in lower than expected. Oil production averaged 1.77 million barrels per day in February, about 2.8% lower than the government's forecast. Gas production averaged 12 billion cubic feet per day, off 1.2% from expectations.

Equinor, however, noted earlier this week that gas production on the Norwegian continental shelf increased by 8% relative to 2021 levels, an increase that came just as the European economy was breaking away from Russian supplies in an effort to rob the Kremlin of the revenue it needs to keep fighting the war in Ukraine.

RELATED A new oil discovery off Norway has a substantial upside, the government said

"The invasion of Ukraine and Russia's weaponization of energy brought further instability to already tight markets, and across the organization we have felt the responsibility that comes with being the single largest supplier of gas to Europe," Anders Opedal, the president and CEO at Equinor, said.

Hero of 'Hotel Rwanda' to be released after controversial terrorism sentence commuted

By Patrick Hilsman

Paul Rusesabagina, the hero who inspired the film "Hotel Rwanda," is set to be released after having a controversial terrorism sentence commuted by Rwandan President Paul Kagame. File Photo by Heinz Ruckemann/UPI | License Photo



March 24 (UPI) -- The man whose story of saving Tutsi civilians during the Rwandan genocide was portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda is set to be released after having a 25-year sentence on terrorism charges commuted.

Paul Rusesabagina was convicted on terrorism charges in 2021 and sentenced to 25 years after being lured from the United States to Dubai and then to Rwanda under false pretenses that he was boarding a plane to visit Burundi.

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Rusesabagina sheltered more than 1,000 vulnerable people, mostly Tutsis who were targeted by extremist elements of the government, in the Hotel des Mille Collines, where he was working as manager.

In 2005, then U.S. President George W. Bush awarded Rusesabagina the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He has since become a pro-democracy activist and vocal critic of the authoritarian government of President Paul Kagame, who came to power after the collapse of the Hutu-led Rwandan government that had backed the genocide against the Tutsi ethnic minority and which ended with more than a million deaths, according to the U.N.

However, it is Kagame who commuted Rusesabagina's sentence.

Rwandan authorities claimed Rusesabagina was involved in rebel attacks 2018 and 2019, but Amnesty International reported multiple fair-trial violations in the case against him.

RELATED Court convicts 'Hotel Rwanda' hero Paul Rusesabagina on terror charges

In May, the U.S. State Department said that Rusesabagina had been "wrongfully detained."

Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said "commutation of sentence does not extinguish the underlying conviction."

Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majid Al-Ansari said Rusesabagina would first be transferred to Qatar.

RELATED Authorities arrest 'Hotel Rwanda' film hero Paul Rusesabagina

"He will then head to the United States of America," Al-Ansari said.

Late Friday, President Biden expressed appreciation about the news of Rusesabagina's release.

"I welcome today's release of Paul Rusesabagina by the government of Rwanda. Paul's family is eager to welcome him back to the United States, and I share their joy at today's good news," Biden said. "I thank the Rwandan government for making this reunion possible, and I also thank the government of Qatar for facilitating Paul's release and return to the United States. I add my gratitude to those across the U.S. government who have worked with the government of Rwanda to achieve today's happy outcome."

Michigan repeals right-to-work law in rare legislative victory for labor unions
By Matt Bernardini

Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, signed legislation on Friday that repealed the state's right-to-work law. File Photo by Andrew Harrer/UPI | License Photo

March 24 (UPI) -- Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer repealed the state's right-to-work law on Friday, handing a major victory to labor unions.

Michigan became the first state in more than half a century to repeal a right-to-work law as Whitmer officially signed legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature.

Whitmer also reinstated a law that mandates union-level wages and benefits for state-funded construction projects.

"Today, we are coming together to restore workers' rights, protect Michiganders on the job, and grow Michigan's middle class," Whitmer said in a statement, according to the Detroit Free Press. "Michigan workers are the most talented and hard-working in the world and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect."

Friday's repeal of the state's right-to-work law is the first since Indiana did so in 1965, although they passed a right-to-work law again in 2012.

"For us, being the home of labor and getting attacked 10 years ago was a gut punch to workers across Michigan," state Sen. Darrin Camilleri, the sponsor of MI SB34 (23R), told POLITICO. "We are a state so steeped in union activism and union history that we knew this was a policy that our constituents wanted for the last 10 years as well."

When the right-to-work law was passed in 2012, 11% of workers were in a union, compared to just 9% now.

The new law will go into effect after 90 days, when the legislative session ends.

Republicans have argued that repealing the law would make it harder for the state to attract businesses.

"Gov. Whitmer and Democrats have hurt Michigan's ability to compete to attract high-paying careers," said House Republican Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township in a statement. "Without right-to-work, businesses will find more competitive states for their manufacturing plants and research and development facilities, and workers and careers will drift away."

Iraq WMD failures shadow US intelligence 20 years later

By NOMAAN MERCHANT

March 23, 2023

1 of 5
 Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., talks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 15, 2021. Two decades ago, Crow was a 24-year-old platoon leader in the American invasion of Iraq. Platoon members carried gas masks and gear to wear over their uniforms to protect them from the chemical weapons the U.S. believed – wrongly – that Iraqi forces might use against them. Today, Crow sits on committees that oversee the U.S. military and intelligence agencies.

 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his U.S. Capitol office, Rep. Jason Crow keeps several war mementos. Sitting on a shelf are his military identification tags, the tailfins of a spent mortar and a piece of shrapnel stopped by his body armor.

Two decades ago, Crow was a 24-year-old platoon leader in the American invasion of Iraq. Platoon members carried gas masks and gear to wear over their uniforms to protect them from the chemical weapons the U.S. believed — wrongly — that Iraqi forces might use against them.

Today, Crow sits on committees that oversee the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. The mistakes of Iraq are still fresh in his mind.

“It’s not hyperbole to say that it was a life-changing experience and a life frame through which I view a lot of my work,” the Colorado Democrat said.

The failures of the Iraq War deeply shaped American spy agencies and a generation of intelligence officers and lawmakers. They helped drive a major reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community, with the CIA losing its oversight role over other spy agencies, and reforms intended to allow analysts to better evaluate sources and challenge conclusions for possible bias.

But the ultimately incorrect assertions about Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, repeatedly cited to build support for the war in America and abroad, did lasting damage to the credibility of U.S. intelligence.

As many as 300,000 civilians died in two decades of conflict in Iraq, according to Brown University estimates. The U.S. lost 4,500 troops and spent an estimated $2 trillion on the Iraq War and the ensuing campaign in both Iraq and Syria against the extremist Islamic State group, which took hold in both countries after the U.S. initially withdrew in 2011.

Those assertions also made “weapons of mass destruction” a catchphrase that’s still used by rivals and allies alike, including before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which U.S. intelligence correctly forecast.

Avril Haines, the current U.S. director of national intelligence, noted in a statement that the intelligence community had adopted new standards for analysis and oversight.

“We learned critical lessons in the wake of our flawed assessment of an active WMD program in Iraq in 2002,” Haines said. “Since then, for example, we have expanded the use of structured analytic techniques, established community-wide analytic standards, and enhanced tradecraft oversight. As in every part of our work, we strive to learn the lessons that allow us to preserve and advance our thinking to greater effect in service of our national security.”

Only 18% of U.S. adults say they have a great deal of confidence in the government’s intelligence agencies, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Forty-nine percent say they have “some” confidence and 31% have hardly any confidence.

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban sheltered al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and allowed the group to run training camps.

Bush’s administration soon began to warn about Iraq, which was long seen as threatening American interests in the Middle East.

Iraq was known to have sought a nuclear weapon in the 1980s and had chemical and biological weapons programs by the end of the Gulf War in 1991. It had been accused of concealing details about those programs from international inspectors, before they were kicked out in 1998.

The Bush administration argued Saddam Hussein’s government was still hiding programs from inspectors after they reentered the country in 2002 and found no signs of resumed production.

A U.S. intelligence estimate published in October 2002 alleges that Iraq had considered buying uranium from Niger and aluminum tubes for centrifuges, that it was building mobile weapons labs, that it was considering using drones to spread deadly toxins, and that it had chemical weapons stockpiles of up to 500 tons.

Some U.S. officials also suggested Iraqi officials had ties to al-Qaida leaders despite evidence of deep antipathy between the two sides.

Those claims would largely be debunked within months of the invasion. No stockpiles were found. Subsequent reviews have blamed those claims on outdated information, mistaken assumptions, and a mix of uninformed sources and outright fabricators.

Bush repeated wrong U.S. intelligence findings before the war, as did Secretary of State Colin Powell in a landmark February 2002 speech before the United Nations.

“He said he’d go to his grave with the manacles of Iraq,” said retired Col. Larry Wilkerson, who was then Powell’s chief of staff and later became a high-profile critic of the Bush administration. Powell died in 2021.

It’s still sharply debated whether the Bush administration would have ordered the invasion without the WMD intelligence.

A White House spokesperson told The Washington Post in 2006 — as Iraq had fallen into a violent insurgency — that Bush “made his decision to go to war in Iraq based on the intelligence given to him by the intelligence community.”

Some former intelligence officials argue the Bush administration stretched available information to make the case for war, particularly on allegations of ties between Iraq and al-Qaida.

Congress was already debating wholesale change to the U.S. intelligence community after the Sept. 11 attacks, an intelligence failure blamed in part on a lack of information sharing between the CIA and FBI.

Lawmakers in 2004 created the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence to oversee the other agencies, taking that leadership function away from the CIA. ODNI took control of the daily intelligence briefing given to the president and of the National Intelligence Council, comprised of the spy community’s top analysts.

Supporters say ODNI can arbitrate among the other agencies, which often have sharply different skillsets and cultures. Others criticize ODNI as an unnecessary bureaucratic layer.

The CIA revamped its training program for analysts to emphasize the study of alternatives and use of “red teams” that challenge conclusions. It also forced more information sharing so analysts could better evaluate the sources of specific reports.

Michael Allen, who served in the Bush White House and wrote the book “Blinking Red” about the 2004 intelligence overhaul, said U.S. officials in the wake of Iraq are more likely to accept differences of opinion within intelligence.

Allen noted as an example the Energy Department’s recent assessment that the COVID-19 virus likely leaked from a Chinese lab. The FBI also supports the lab leak hypothesis, but other agencies say the virus likely was transmitted from animals to humans or have declined to take a position.

The U.S. learned to “not take intelligence at face value, but to really examine the basis upon which the conclusions were made and to listen to differing views among different agencies in the intelligence community,” said Allen, now managing director of Washington-based Beacon Global Strategies.

Ukraine has been a bright spot for U.S. intelligence. The Biden administration has supplied information to Kyiv for Ukraine to bolster its defenses and declassified intelligence findings on Russian intentions to try to influence Moscow and build allied support.

And while they correctly predicted Russia’s intention to invade, the spy agencies wrongly believed Ukraine’s forces would fall within weeks.

While in Congress, Crow has pressed the agencies to review how they assess a foreign government’s ability to fight. U.S. intelligence two years ago wrongly projected the Washington-backed government in Kabul would survive months after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“We’ve lived with the ghosts of Iraq for two decades and it’s impacted our credibility,” Crow said. “Now we’re starting to find it again. It’s a great opportunity for us to learn lessons of the past and do it better going forward.”

But those ghosts remain. Sitting in his office for a recent interview, Crow said he understands the limits of what a military can do and the importance of using armed forces properly. He said he thinks about his enrolling in the Wisconsin National Guard after high school as a private and moving to active duty after Sept. 11.

He pointed to a photo on a wall opposite the shelf with his Iraq War mementos, a picture of his company at Fort Bragg, an Army base in North Carolina, before they went to the Middle East.

“There’s men in that picture who died, who aren’t here anymore,” he said. “I think about those guys, too.”

___

AP Polling reporter Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report.

WHERE IS THE 'JUST TRANSITION'

Polish coal miners protest EU methane reduction regulations

Some 300 Polish coal miners angered by the European Union directive reducing methane emissions protest noisily before the EU office saying it will deprive them of their jobs, in Warsaw, Poland, on Friday, March 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish coal miners angered by a European Union directive aiming to reduce methane emissions protested noisily Friday before the EU office in Warsaw saying it will deprive them of their jobs.

Some 300 miners chanted “Thieves” and used smoke flares and sirens to draw attention to their protest in the downtown area of Poland’s capital. Traffic was temporarily closed in the area.

Protesting miners from the Solidarity 80 union said recent climate recommendations for the 27-member EU that call for a significant reduction of methane, starting in 2027, would force most of the nation’s mines to close, with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

The majority of Poland’s mines have a high presence of methane gas that gets released in the coal extraction process. That also leads to serious mining accidents as methane becomes explosive when mixed in low proportions with oxygen.

Located in the southern Silesia region, the coal mines are among Poland’s major employers, offering some 77,000 jobs in the nation of 38 million.

Drag community shows up to protest Nebraska drag show bill

By MARGERY A. BECK

A group of around 200 people who turned out for a rally inside the Nebraska State Capitol hold up signs in support of the transgender community, Friday, March 24, 2023 in Lincoln, Neb. The rally was held to protest the advancement of a bill Thursday that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, as well as a bill that would criminalize allowing minors to attend drag shows. (AP Photo/Margery Beck)

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill that would criminalize exposing anyone 18 or younger to a drag show in Nebraska was the last one to get a public hearing in this year’s legislative session late Friday. But those opposed to the bill made sure the final hearing went out with a flash of glitter and sequins.

Among scores of people who showed up to voice their opposition were more than a dozen dressed in drag, including heavy makeup, wigs and evening gowns.

The bill’s main sponsor, conservative Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, said the legislation is intended to protect children “from being exposed to overly-sexualized and inappropriate behavior far too early.”

The bill defines drag as a performance by someone presenting a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth. It would make exposing a minor to a drag show a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. The bill comes amidst a national push by conservatives to restrict drag shows, transgender health care, bathroom access and how LGBTQ topics are discussed in schools.

“Those who allow this kind of perversion should be held accountable,” Murman said.

But Murman struggled to answer questions from Judiciary Committee members about how his bill would be enforced without violating the constitutional rights of drag performers, parents and others. Sen. Carol Blood, a Democrat from Bellevue asked how he would draw a line between drag and, say, musicians or actors who dress up in makeup and showy costumes for performances.

When Murman said the difference would come down to how scantily dressed the performer was, another Democrat, Sen. Wendy DeBoer, asked whether that would include a cheerleader in uniform twerking at a game. Murman said it would not.

“What you’re doing is cherry-picking a demographic, and that’s wrong,” Blood said.

The fact that the hearing didn’t begin until after 5 p.m. Friday did little to dissuade the public from turning out to speak on it. The crowd filled the Judiciary Committee hearing room and spilled out nearly 100 deep into the Capitol hallways.

Those supporting the bill expressed conspiracy theories of alleged efforts to indoctrinate children into queer society and used words like “groomers” and “woke culture” to describe drag shows.

But the vast majority of those attending opposed the bill, including two who identify themselves as Polly Pocket and Baby Girl, who often read picture books to children at an Omaha church’s story hour. They defended such events and drag shows as simple fun and read from the children’s book “Unicorns Are the Worst!” at a rally held before the hearing to protest the drag bill and another to ban gender-affirming care for minors.

“It’s just queer people showing queer art,” Polly Pocket said.

The church where they perform, Urban Abbey, has been hosting drag story hours since 2018. But last Saturday, the show was interrupted by an emailed bomb threat that also threatened the church’s pastor and several staff members.

“I have never in my life received an email that said, ‘Today you will die,’” Urban Abbey’s pastor, the Rev. Debra McKnight, said. “They listed my home address and the addresses of several staff members.”

Sunday service the next day was also interrupted by an emailed bomb threat, she said, noting that Omaha police and the FBI are investigating.

The bill could later be advanced or die in committee.