Pope Francis On Gays: Who Am I To Judge Them?

“I have yet to find anyone who has a business card that says he is gay,” the pontiff said at a press conference in which he addressed the reports of a "gay lobby" within the Vatican.

“They say they exist. If someone is gay, who searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he added. "The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalized because of this (orientation) but that they must be integrated into society."

Francis added that he thought lobbies of any kind -- including political ones -- were bad.

"The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem," he said. 

The press conference, which lasted for an hour and 20 minutes, was held during the flight back from his week-long trip to Brazil.  

The official position of the Catholic Church on the issue is that while homosexual desires or attractions are not in themselves sinful, the physical acts are.

Slideshow: Pope Francis visits Brazil

Felipe Dana / AP

The pontiff went to Brazil on his first visit overseas since he was elected in March.

The Pope said he had stayed away from the issue of gay marriage and also abortion on his week-long trip to Brazil because he wanted to stay positive.

Francis discussed a range of issues during the press conference, admitting that the church had not done enough to develop “the theology of women in the church.”

He said that the church had spoken on the issue of women priests and expressed itself clearly on the issue of abortion, but he added that important female biblical figures had been overlooked.

"Mary is more important than the apostles," he said. "One must think about women in the church. We have not done enough theology on this."

History's first Latin American pope said he was "pretty tired" but with a happy heart after his first overseas trip.

He said he was amazed at the number of people who turned out to see him in Brazil, especially the three million who jammed Copacabana Beach for Sunday's Mass.

He added that he was unconcerned by the tumultuous start to the trip that included the discovery of a bomb at a shrine he visited and the mob scene that took place when his driver inadvertently made wrong turn.

"There's always the danger of a crazy person, but there is also the Lord," he said. "This being close is good for everyone."

'Homosexual propaganda' law signals latest Russian crackdown

Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters

Police detain a gay rights activist during a Gay Pride event in St. Petersburg on June 29, 2013.

MOSCOW -- A new law banning "homosexual propaganda" in Russia is raising concerns about the state of human rights in a country already notorious for silencing dissent.

The legislation is vague but its intent is clear: It is now "illegal to spread information about non-traditional sexual behavior" to minors (under 18), and there are hefty fines for those who disobey. Foreigners are also subject to fines and can be deported.

Anti-homosexual crackdowns are nothing new in Russia: In 1933 the Soviet regime imposed a law banning sexual relations between men – punishable by a five-year prison term. Although it was lifted after the fall of the Soviet Union, homophobia still runs deep.

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Gay rights marches are routinely broken up and scenes of police detaining activists, sometimes before demonstrations even begin, are commonplace. On Wednesday, activists of the Moscow Gay Pride movement were detained in Moscow for holding an unsanctioned rally and for "promoting untraditional sexual relations." (They were later released.)

According to Nikolai Alexeyev, a prominent Russian gay rights activist who is frequently detained himself, crimes against homosexuals are also on the rise.

"Many gay people want to immigrate and they ask me to help [them] get political asylum, fearing for their safety," he said.

In May, a 23-year old man was allegedly murdered in the city of Volgograd on the Victory Day holiday. A suspect reportedly told police the victim was killed because he was gay. In June, Russian investigators said another man in Kamchatka was also murdered because he was gay.

Ivan Sekretarev / AP

Police officers watch gay rights activists kiss near the State Duma, Russia's lower parliament chamber, in Moscow, Russia, on June 11, 2013. Protesters attempted to rally outside the Russian State Duma before a final vote on the bill banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations.

As for the new law, a whopping 88 percent of the nation supports it, even though most have never seen such "homosexual propaganda," the state-owned All Russian Center for Public Opinion reported.

According to Human Rights Watch, the crackdown is part of President Vladimir Putin's current agenda of promoting conservative values.

"These restrictions are popular with his political constituency" and can be used as a "political boost," director of the organization's European and Central Asian division Hugh Williamson told NBC News. He added that he did not believe the crackdown was provoked by the activities of the gay community.

The Russian population has been steadily falling since the early nineties. It shrank from 148.6 million in 1993 to 141.9 million in 2010, according to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service. Putin has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church, and his government has introduced various social programs to promote young couples having more children.

Just a week after the "propaganda" law was passed, Putin pushed through another law banning gay foreign couples from adopting Russian children. (All U.S. adoptions of Russian children have been banned). 

Apparently in step, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church -- Patriarch Kirill -- said Sunday that recent Western "legislation of single-sex marriages is bringing the apocalypse closer."

Overseas, the backlash has been swift.

The U.S. state department issued a travel warning for homosexuals in Russia. "Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is widespread in Russia, as harassment, threats, and acts of violence have been targeted at LGBT individuals. Government officials have been known to make derogatory comments about LGBT persons," the warning said.

"I am concerned with yesterday's legal ruling of the @dumagovru. Discrimination and intolerance contradict the spirit of a democratic society," U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted in Russian after the "propaganda" law was passed.

Chris Toala Oivares / Reuters

A demonstrator holds up a picture depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin with make-up during a protest by the gay community in Amsterdam on April 8, 2013.

And with one year until the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, Human Rights Watch urged the International Olympic Committee "to send a clear signal to Russian authorities that discrimination of people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity is sharply at odds with Russia's human rights and Olympic commitments."

Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group, sent a letter to NBC Universal, the exclusive broadcaster of the Olympics and owner of NBCNews.com, asking the network to highlight the anti-gay laws in Russia during coverage of the games. 

In a statement, the network said: "NBCUniversal strongly supports equal rights and the fair treatment for all people. The spirit of the Olympic Games is about unifying people and countries through the celebration of sport and it is our hope that spirit will prevail.”

This week, four Dutch nationals were detained in the northern region of Murmansk, the Russian LGBT Network said. Kris van der Veen, the head of a Dutch gay rights community, and three friends were attending a human rights festival there. The group was allowed to leave the city and travel back to Amsterdam after a court hearing and paying fines.

It was the first case of foreign nationals being detained since the "propaganda" law was introduced.

Alexeyev, the Russian activist, believes the gay community is being used as a scapegoat for the country's ills.

"Russia doesn't want to integrate with the West," he said. "They want to show that they have an independent way of thinking."

Nursing home resident dead after confrontation with police

NBC Chicago

A 95-year-old resident of an Illinois nursing home died early Saturday, hours after being shocked with a Taser and bean bag rounds in a confrontation with police.

Authorities said John Warna was a resident at Victory Centre of Park Forest, on the 100 block of South Main Street in the south suburb. He was threatening paramedics and staff with a cane and a metal shoehorn when police arrived at the complex, they said.

Police said they struck him with a Taser and bean bag rounds after he threatened officers with a 12-inch butcher knife.

Warna was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where he later died.

A cause of death was not released by Saturday evening.

Three dead after bus from church camp overturns in Indianapolis

Three people are dead and several more are critically injured after a bus returning from a church summer camp overturned outside Indianapolis. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

By Tracy Jarrett, NBC News

Three people are dead and several more are critically injured after a bus returning from a church summer camp overturned in Indianapolis, officials said.

Thirty-seven passengers were on the bus when it overturned, entrapping five people, the Indianapolis Fire Department said on its Twitter feed. A large diesel spill resulted and HazMat crews responded to the scene, they said.

Nine teenage patients were sent to Indiana University Methodist Hospital — one of them in critical condition, according to the hospital. Ten patients, including one toddler, are said to be in stable condition at Riley Hospital for Children and Indiana University Health. Another 10 patients were taken to Community North Hospital, according to spokeswoman Courtney Jones. Three injured passengers were taken to St. Vincent Pharma Center in Indianapolis, according to spokesman Johnny Smith.

WTHR

The passengers were reported to be from the Colonial Hills Baptist Church, which is in Indianapolis, according to its website.

"Please be in prayer for our church family as we look to the Lord for grace during the teen bus accident today," the church said in a statement posted on Facebook. "Details will be released at a later time, but prayers are our greatest need right now."

Three injured passengers were taken to St. Vincent Pharma Center in Indianapolis, spokesman Johnny Smith confirmed to NBC News.

All patients have been transported from the scene, the Indianapolis Fire Department said on its Twitter feed.

WTHR

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Pa. gay couple marries as county defies state ban

Ellen Toplin, right, and Charlene Kurland pose for photographs with their m...

 Five same-sex couples obtained marriage licenses Wednesday in a suburban Philadelphia county defying a state ban on such unions, but the governor's spokesman said the local officials lack the power to suspend state law.

Alicia Terrizzi and Loreen Bloodgood, of Pottstown, were the only couple to marry right away, exchanging vows in a park before a minister and their two young sons.

"We're not setting out to be pioneers. We don't think our family is any different than anybody else," said Terrizzi, a 45-year-old teacher. "We've been waiting a long time for this."

The licenses issued Wednesday in Montgomery County are believed to be the first to same-sex couples in Pennsylvania, the only northeastern state without same-sex marriages or civil unions.

A 1996 Pennsylvania law defines marriage as a civil contract in which a man and a woman take each other as husband and wife, and it says same-sex marriages, even ones entered legally elsewhere, are void in Pennsylvania.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit this month asking a federal judge to overturn the law.

Before that suit played out, officials in the affluent and increasingly Democratic county signaled this week that they would grant same-sex licenses.

They could find themselves in court nonetheless if Republican Gov. Tom Corbett or other state officials challenge their actions. In other states with same-sex marriage bans, licenses issued by defiant local officials have been voided by courts.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman, a Republican, said Wednesday evening that a same-sex marriage license isn't legally valid in Pennsylvania, but she said it's not her place to intervene.

"The register of wills cannot change the laws of this commonwealth by simply ignoring them," Ferman said in a statement. "If that change comes, it will be through Pennsylvania courts or the Legislature."

Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, Corbett's spokesman, added that office holders are "are constitutionally required to administer and enforce the laws" but did not immediately say whether any challenge was in the works.

Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane, though, has said that she will not defend the ban, leaving Corbett's office to tackle the ACLU lawsuit.

The risk of a court fight down the road did not stop the eight women and two men who picked up marriage licenses.

"Today I feel like a full citizen," said Marcus Saitschenko, 52, of Philadelphia, who came to the suburban courthouse with his partner of 22 years, James Goldstein. "We're just hoping that the state will recognize it."

Montgomery County has the state's third-largest population. D. Bruce Hanes, the register of wills, said he wanted to come down "on the right side of history and the law." His decision came weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Ted Martin, the executive director of Equality Pennsylvania, said that, to the best of his knowledge, the licenses were the first same-sex marriage licenses ever issued in Pennsylvania.

Retired marketing executive Ellen Toplin, 60, and partner Charlene Kurland, 69, sought a license Wednesday after 22 years together. Both had previously been married to men, and between them have three children and one grandchild.

"It was expected that I would marry a man, have children and have two cars in the suburbs," Kurland said. "I think it's wonderful for young people today to be able to be who they are."

Two other women had considered applying for a license Tuesday, but they changed course after their lawyer talked to the ACLU, which raised the likelihood of a legal challenge.

Bruce Castor, a Republican county commissioner and a former prosecutor, said opponents could ask Kane's office to challenge the same-sex licenses in court. Alternately, Corbett's office could go to court to block them or a county judge could step in.

The Rev. Craig Andrussier, a nondenominational minister, married Terrizzi and Bloodgood in a brief ceremony that he expects they will someday "tell their grandchildren about."

"I feel great. I feel honored," Andrussier said.

At least 10 people suffered minor injuries when a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 skidded to a rough landing Monday at New York's LaGuardia Airport as its front landing gear collapsed, authorities said.

At least 10 people suffered minor injuries when a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 skidded to a rough landing Monday at New York's LaGuardia Airport as its front landing gear collapsed, authorities said.

Six of the 149 people aboard Southwest Flight 345, from Nashville, Tenn., to New York, were being treated at Elmhurst General Hospital after the jet came to a stop on Runway 4 at 5:45 p.m. ET, said Thomas Bosco, the airport's general manager and acting aviation director for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Four others refused treatment, he said.

LaGuardia Airport General Manager Thomas Bosco says the nose gear of a Southwest Airlines flight collapsed, causing it to have a hard landing.

The airport, which was closed after the accident, was reopened at 7 p.m. ET, Bosco said.

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There was no immediate explanation for why the landing gear malfunctioned. The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday night that the pilot "reported possible front landing gear issues before landing," but it gave no further details.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending an investigator to gather information. It told NBC News that it hadn't yet decided whether to dispatch a full investigative team.

Bosco said the jet remained on the runway, which he said could be reopened Tuesday.

About a dozen emergency vehicles surrounded the Southwest plane, whose passengers evacuated by the rear chute and were taken by bus to the terminal. Bosco said none of the injuries occurred during the evacuation.

"It's a surreal scene here given what just happened in the Bay Area," Sam Brock of NBC Bay Area, who saw the incident from another plane he was on at the airport, told NBC New York in an on-air telephone interview, referring to the crash of Asiana Flight 214 early this month at San Francisco International Airport.

Brock said the pilot of his flight told passengers that there were no serious injuries and no sign of fire or flames on the Southwest plane.

Steve Czech, who was on the runway waiting for his American Airlines flight to take off, told NBC New York that he saw the Southwest plane touch down.

"There was just this fireball going down the runway. It was unbelievable — it was probably 300 yards from us, if that," Czech said.

"Clearly, there was no nose gear," he said. "It was just screeching down the runway, fire on both sides. There was debris kind of rolling off to the sides."

Suspected Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo's DNA matched that found at the scene of Mary Sullivan's death.

Suspected Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo's DNA matched that found at the scene of Mary Sullivan's death.

BOSTON —  DNA tests confirm that the man who once claimed to be the Boston Strangler did kill the woman believed to be the serial killer's last victim and was likely responsible for the deaths of the other victims, authorities said Friday.

Albert DeSalvo admitted to killing Mary Sullivan and 10 other women in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964 but later recanted. He was later killed in prison.

Related: Who is suspected Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo?

The DNA finding "leaves no doubt that Albert DeSalvo was responsible for the brutal murder of Mary Sullivan" and it was "most likely" that he also was the Boston Strangler, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

Eleven Boston-area women between the ages of 19 and 85 were sexually assaulted and killed between 1962 and 1964, crimes that terrorized the region and grabbed national headlines.

Authorities said recently that new technology allowed them to test semen left at the crime scene of Sullivan's death using DNA from a living relative of DeSalvo's. That produced a match with DeSalvo that excluded 99.9 percent of suspects, and was the first forensic evidence tying DeSalvo to the nearly 50-year-old case.

To confirm the match, investigators unearthed his remains a week ago and said Friday that the odds that the semen belonged to a male other than DeSalvo were 1 in 220 billion.

"It's a great day. This is now full justice for my aunt, Mary Sullivan," said her nephew, Casey Sherman.

A lawyer for DeSalvo's family, Elaine Sharp, said last week that even a perfect DNA match wouldn't mean he killed Sullivan and suggested that someone else was present at the slaying. She said previous private testing on Sullivan's remains showed the presence of DNA from what appeared to be semen that wasn't a match to DeSalvo.

Related: DNA links DeSalvo to Boston Strangler victim, officials say

Police responded last week by saying the evidence used in private testing from Sullivan's exhumed remains was "very questionable."

Sharp also said in a statement that DeSalvo's brother and his nephew — whom police secretly trailed to collect a family DNA sample from a discarded water bottle — won't comment on the new DNA result because it hasn't been proven to be relevant to the question of whether DeSalvo raped and strangled Sullivan.

"There is no level of 'unprecedented certainty' as now claimed by the government," Sharp said.

But the idea that the DNA match doesn't identify DeSalvo as Sullivan's killer is bizarre, responded Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley.

"It suggests that Mary Sullivan had consensual sex with Albert DeSalvo moments before another person who has never been identified sexually assaulted and strangled her to death, leaving no trace of his presence," Wark said. "Frankly, it defies everything we know about this case."

Sullivan was 19 when she died in January 1964, a few days after she moved from Cape Cod to Boston.

Law enforcement officials disagree about whether the same person killed all the women whose deaths became connected to the Strangler. DeSalvo went to prison for life for a series of armed robberies and sex assaults before someone fatally stabbed him in 1973.

F. Lee Bailey, a defense lawyer who once represented DeSalvo, said Friday that DeSalvo provided so many details that only the perpetrator would know that he became convinced that his client was the Boston Strangler.

He said it's fortunate that the DNA test was run because the failure to try DeSalvo for the 11 homicides led to speculation about the Strangler's identity.

Bailey said Friday's announcement shows that case detectives did good police work when they devised questions for DeSalvo that only the killer could answer correctly.

Sherman had once joined with the DeSalvo family in believing that Albert DeSalvo wasn't his aunt's killer, and even wrote a book on the case pointing to other possible suspects.

He said Friday that he thinks there will always be unanswered questions related to the Strangler case, but when it comes to his loved one's slaying, his family finally has a sense of closure.

"He's the killer of my aunt, which is all this has been about for me," Sherman said.

A lung transplant is a treatment, not a cure.

The View From the Inside. A lung transplant is a treatment, not a cure.  This is the single most important fact to keep in mind when considering a transplant.  As explained to me early on, a transplant is the process by which an untreatable disease is replaced with a treatable one.  Treatable in that you have to take anti-rejection/immune-suppression medications after the transplant to prevent chronic rejection and death.  However, for me and for the vast majority of patients with a disease that would otherwise prove fatal, this is an acceptable trade-off.  I felt that way going in, and I definitely feel that way some three years and change after the operation.
A lung transplant can be used to replace one or both lungs.  Some diseases require a double-lung replacement (e.g., cases with pulmonary hypertension), while others lend themselves well to a single-lung replacement (such as early- to mid-stage IPF).
Here are a  few details about donor organ allocation and patient eligibility that are specific to lung transplantation:
Allocation of donor lungs is not covered by a Status Level system, which enables a patient to move higher up the waiting list as he (or she) gets sicker, and is currently reserved for hearts, livers, and multiple-organ transplants.  Donor lungs are allocated through a basic Time-On-List method, therefore time is the primary factor used to determine when a lung transplant candidate will be transplanted.  In addition to time, there are other medical and/or physical categories of matching that are also involved, as follows:
1.  Size--You are a certain size, and so are your lungs.  People's sizes vary a great deal; so it is with lungs.  Obviously, a child's lungs could not support a grown adult, but the matching must be closer than that.  The height of the candidate and the height of the donor need to be as close as possible.
2.  Blood type--Basically speaking, the blood type of the donor has to match the blood type of the candidate.  Unlike with other organ transplants, with lungs, donor organs from one blood type are transplanted into candidates of the same blood type.  There is no exploitation of Type O+ (the "universal donor") lungs for candidates with other blood types, as has been the case with livers until very recently.
In addition to the matching categories listed above, the following factors are also sometimes used to determine a patient's eligibility for a given donor organ (or even sometimes a transplant in the first place), so I will also include them as well:
A.  CMV status matching of candidate and donor--CMV is sometimes known as the "daycare virus"; over 80% of the adult population of the US has been exposed to it and has antibodies for it.  If the donor and the candidate are not matched for CMV, there can be problems later with CMV infection, so some centers try to match prior to the transplant.  This policy varies, however, from center to center, and is (in my opinion) an exclusionary practice disguised as a protective measure.  As the transplant center should prophylactically treat for possible CMV infection with extended IV Gancyclovir infusions anyway, matching for CMV is essentially unnecessary.
B.  Prednisone dose level at time of transplant--It is commonly thought that the candidate should be taking no more than 20 mg. per day of Prednisone when they are transplanted.  This, too, is (in my opinion) another exclusionary practice that finds popularity at transplant centers attempting to stack all of the odds in their favor.  Common sense would tell you that the nature of most lung diseases, and the average waiting list time involved, makes increased steroid use a fact of life.  As the delayed healing effects of steroids are handled by the use of staples when closing the incision, and steroid use is required after the transplant anyway, this looks more and more like another restriction than a sensible requirement.
C.  Six-minute walk performance--This is another controversial issue (to me, anyway), that can be used as a tactic by transplant centers attempting to improve their success rates.  In fact, the "Welcome to the Program" letter I received from the transplant center at which I was initially listed stated in no uncertain terms that I could, at some point, become too sick to transplant.  Curiously, this never seems to be an issue with Status-Level allocated organs such as hearts and livers.  In fact, due to the very nature of the Status Level system, you basically have to be a day from death to even GET transplanted--there is always somebody sicker that moves in front of you on the list.  The fact is that at many centers, the six-minute walk has somehow become the standard by which a lung transplant candidate's ongoing transplantability is judged.  As such, it has become an object of fear that effectively undermines the relationship of trust that must exist between the patient and the transplant center.  I urge transplant centers to do a better job of listing patients earlier and being less restrictive after they are listed.
D.  Weight--Probably the most difficult issue facing many transplant candidates is pre-operative weight.  Unfortunately, a common side effect of pre-transplant steroid therapy is weight gain.  The reason given by transplant centers is that an overweight condition inhibits the patient's ability to rehabilitate.  The fact is that as the efficiency of a patient's oxygen system--the lungs, heart, and  blood--decreases through the course of their disease, it gets harder and harder to carry excess weight, so losing some only makes life easier anyway.  This one is probably legitimate.

Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas Are "Head Over Heels" in Love: All the Details on Their Romance

Prince Harry, Cressida Bonas

There might be a new addition to the royal family soon—and no, we're not taking about Kate Middleton and Prince William 's baby.

Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas are getting pretty close. In fact, a source tells E! News exclusively that the pair are "definitely more in love than ever," adding, "I would not be surprised if she's the one he marries." (!)

"They are very affectionate with one another when they are with their friends," adds the source. "They kiss and cuddle and just seem head over heels for one another. They both have the same sense of fun and adventure. They're on the same wavelength. They are so compatible."

NEWS: All the details on Harry and Cressida's time at Glastonbury

And Harry's ex-girlfriend is apparently more than OK with his new romance. "It's not awkward withChelsy Davy at all," says a source. "Chelsy and Cressida have become firm friends nowadays."

"It's different dating a royal and getting used to that life and the challenges it brings," adds a source. "Chelsy is someone that Cressida can talk to about her unique situation. Chelsy has a man of her own anyhow."

On June 22, Prince Harry, Cressida, and Chelsy attended the wedding of Melissa Percy and Thomas van Straubenzee . Prince William (sans Kate, who was on maternity leave), Pippa Middletonand Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie also showed up for the royal affair.

PHOTOS: Harry and Cressida get cozy on winter holiday

A source tells E! News it was actually Eugenie who introduced Harry, 28, and Cressida, 24. "Cressida is really smart, very naturally pretty and just a really cool girl to hang out with. It's hard for Harry to date as there are so many opportunities out there, but Cressida is someone he knows he can trust as she is already in his circle," adds a source.

She also comes from a prominent family. Her mother is Lady Mary-Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon, a darling among Tatler and the British society pages. She's also the half-sister of actress Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, who married Richard Branson's son Sam in March 2013.

So clearly, she fits right in to royal life. And Princess Cressida has a lovely ring to it!