ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Texas Kadiri Moro stood in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Accra on Thursday, dressed in short pink Speedos and a pink polo shirt. Accompanied by trumpet players, carrying a banner with slogans including, “Why should a society of evildoers judge others?” and “Justice begins where inequality ends!” he marched across the Ghanaian capital in a one-man protest against a highly controversial bill which targets members of the LGBTQ+ community and their supporters.
Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation.
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Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/ Misper Apawu)
He is heterosexual, married to a woman, and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practicing Muslim. Yet for months he has been conducting solo demonstrations against the bill, which criminalizes members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as its supporters, including promotion and funding of related activities and public displays of affection. It could send some people to prison for more than a decade.
The bill was passed by Ghana ’s parliament earlier this year but has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
It has not yet been signed into law by President Nana Akufo-Addo, who cited ongoing proceedings. But he refused to reject it either.
“There are so many issues about rights" when it comes to the bill, Moro told The Associated Press.
“Homosexuality does not affect anyone," Moro said. “We have activities that people are doing in the country that are worse than homosexual activities,” he added, citing adultery as an example. The parliament, he said, should be more concerned with “other crimes and pollution.”
The bill has sparked condemnation from rights groups and some in the international community who have been concerned about similar efforts by other African governments.
Sponsors of the bill have said it seeks to protect children and people who are victims of abuse.
Gay sex is already illegal in Ghana, carrying a three-year prison sentence, but the new bill could imprison people for more than a decade for activities including public displays of affection and promotion and funding of LGBTQ+ activities.
Since he began his protests, Moro has lost his job, has not received any assistance from the LGBTQ+ community, and has become a target of “very hostile attacks from the Muslim community," he says.
But he is determined to continue. For him, it is about battling injustice.
“I know I'm doing something that God is asking me to do,” he said.
To point out the hypocrisy of the bill, Moro carried a petition to the Parliament asking the government to withdraw foreign missions from countries where homosexuality is legal, if they find it “filthy,” he said.
At the entrance to Parliament House, Kate Addo, Parliament's director of communications, received Moro's petition on behalf of the speaker. She said she was pleased with his initiative.
“We live in a democratic country where what people do in their bedrooms is not to be anyone’s concern,” Addo said. "However, we are also regulated by law.”
Even though Ghana's president delayed signing the bill into law, activists said that the debate by itself triggered an increase in physical and psychological violence against LGBTQ+ people.
Joseph Kobla Wemakor, the executive director of Human Rights Reporters Ghana, said that "abuse, both psychologically and physically against members of the community has skyrocketed" since the bill has been introduced.
“The moment people hear that you are part of this, the LGBTQ+, you are an enemy," Wekamor said. “They are looking forward to hurting you, even lynching you, killing you.”
They are "forgetting that we are all humans,” he added.
“It takes one man to change the world," he said. “And if he has started something like that, other people will follow, because it (the bill) is a wrongdoing.”
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Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Texas Kadri Moro, the Executive Director of Arise for Justice International, protests with placards nailed on a cross on the street of Accra, Ghana, Thursday Sept 12, 2024. Texas Kadiri Moro is an unusual figure amid the LGBTQ+ rights activists in the coastal West African nation of Ghana. He is heterosexual, married to a woman and a father of six. He is a teacher. And he is a practising Muslim. (AP Photo/ Misper Apawu)
Donald Trump began his first day as the 47th president of the United States with a dizzying display of force, signing a blizzard of executive orders that signaled his desire to remake American institutions while also pardoning nearly all of his supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Here's the latest:
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday that he has the Foreign Ministry preparing Polish diplomatic missions in the United States for possible deportations as a precaution.
“The new administration has not yet informed anyone about the details of this operation, therefore we have not received information on whether this operation may be harmful to Polish citizens,” Tusk said. “But either way, we have to be prepared.”
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski followed up by saying his ministry was encouraging Polish citizens living abroad whose passports have expired to obtain new documents.
On Monday, the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated, the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw issued a statement urging all Poles abroad to return to Poland, without mentioning the U.S.
“Good New Year’s Resolution – Return to Poland!” read the title of the statement.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York will be grilled about her lack of foreign policy experience at 10 a.m. ET and strong support for Israel as she vies to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump’s pick to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, former Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, is also up at 10 a.m. ET. He’s a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command who helped defend Trump during his first impeachment process.
A Senate committee will vote on money manager Scott Bessent, Trump’s choice for Treasury Secretary, at 10:15 ET. He’s an advocate of cutting spending while extending the tax cuts.
Speaking to Fox News, press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to detail the announcement before Trump spoke at 4 p.m. Tuesday but said it would also send a signal to the world.
“You won’t want to miss it,” she said. Trump is also scheduled to attend a national prayer service Tuesday morning at Washington National Cathedral.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are heading to the White House to meet with Trump on Tuesday.
It’s the first formal sit down for the GOP leadership teams including Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Senate GOP Whip John Barrasso and the new president as they chart priorities with the sweep of Republican power in Washington.
Despite an ambitious 100-days agenda, the Republican-led Congress isn’t on the same page on some of the basics of their ideas and strategies as they rush to deliver tax cuts for the wealthy, mass deportations and other priorities for Trump.
He pledged to remove more than 1,000 presidential appointees “who are not aligned with our vision.”
In a post on his TruthSocial platform, Trump dismissed chef and humanitarian Jose Andres from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Ret. Gen. Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, former State Dept. official Brian Hook from the board of the Wilson Center, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council.
“YOUR’E FIRED!” he wrote in a post just after midnight Tuesday.
Milley, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Trump, received a pardon from former President Joe Biden on Monday over concerns he could be criminally targeted by the new administration. His portrait in the Pentagon was also removed. Hook, who was Trump’s Iran envoy during his first term, had been involved in the Trump administration transition. No reasoning was given for his firing.
Former President Joe Biden also removed many Trump appointees in his first days in office, including former press secretary Sean Spicer from the board overseeing the U.S. Naval Acadamy.
Rep. Elise Stefanik is likely to face questions at her confirmation hearing Tuesday to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations about her lack of foreign policy experience, her strong support for Israel and her views on funding the U.N. and its many agencies.
Harvard-educated and the fourth-ranking member of the U.S. House, she was elected to Congress in 2015 as a moderate Republican and is leaving a decade later as one of President Trump’s most ardent allies.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “looks forward to working again with President Trump on his second term,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Monday.
When she appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Stefanik is likely to be grilled about her views on the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere as well as the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs — all issues on the U.N. agenda.
▶ Read more about Elise Stefanik’s confirmation hearing
Scholz said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday that “not every press conference in Washington, not every tweet should send us straight into excited, existential debates. That’s also the case after the change of government that took place in Washington yesterday.”
Scholz said the U.S. is Germany’s closest ally outside Europe and he’ll do everything to keep in that way.
He acknowledged that Trump and his administration “will keep the world on tenterhooks in the coming years” in energy, climate, trade and security policy. But he said “we can and will deal with all this, without unnecessary agitation and outrage, but also without false ingratiation or telling people what they want to hear.”
Scholz said of Trump’s “America First” approach that there’s nothing wrong with looking to the interests of one’s own country – “we all do that. But it is also the case that cooperation and agreement with others are mostly also in one’s interest.”
Speaking in the Oval Office Monday, Trump rejected Biden’s warning that the U.S. is becoming an “ oligarchy ” for tech billionaires, saying the executives supported Democrats until they realized Biden “didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”
“They did desert him,” Trump added. “They were all with him, every one of them, and now they are all with me.”
Despite taking millions from the executives and their companies for his inaugural committee — and receiving more than $200 million in assistance from Musk in his presidential campaign — Trump claimed he didn’t need their money and they wouldn’t be receiving anything in return.
“They’re not going to get anything from me,” Trump said. “I don’t need money, but I do want the nation to do well, and they’re smart people and they create a lot of jobs.”
Some of the most exclusive seats at Trump’s inauguration on Monday were reserved for powerful tech CEOs who also happen to be among the world’s richest men.
That’s a shift from tradition, especially for a president who has characterized himself as a champion of the working class. Seats so close to the president are usually reserved for the president’s family, past presidents and other honored guests.
The mega-rich have long had a prominent role in national politics, and several billionaires helped bankroll the campaign of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
But the inaugural display highlights the unusually direct role the world’s wealthiest people will likely have in the new administration. In his outgoing address, Biden warned that the U.S. was becoming an oligarchy of tech billionaires wielding dangerous levels of power and influence on the nation.
▶ Read more about the billionaires at Trump’s inauguration
Outside the National Cathedral, just a few hours before the Interfaith Service of Prayer for the Nation, which both President Trump and Vice President JD Vance are expected to attend, the scene before was decidedly quiet.
At the Cathedral only a few dog walkers dotted the sidewalk and the police presence was low.
It was a far cry from yesterday when thousands lined up in downtown D.C. festooned in the red regalia of MAGA nation — or the security and foot traffic from earlier this month for the funeral service of former President Jimmy Carter where Secret Service vehicles could be seen at least a mile from the Cathedral.
The Senate quickly confirmed Marco Rubio as secretary of state Monday, voting unanimously to give Trump the first member of his new Cabinet on Inauguration Day.
Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, is among the least controversial of Trump’s nominees and vote was decisive, 99-0.
It’s often tradition for the Senate to convene immediately after the ceremonial pomp of the inauguration to begin putting the new president’s team in place, particularly the national security officials.
▶ Read more about Marco Rubio’s confirmation
All the living former presidents were there and the outgoing president amicably greeted his successor, who gave a speech about the country’s bright future and who left to the blare of a brass band.
At first glance, President Donald Trump’ssecond inauguration seemed like a continuation of the country’s nearly 250-year-long tradition of peaceful transfers of power, essential to its democracy. And there was much to celebrate: Trump won a free and fair election last fall, and his supporters hope he will be able to fix problems at the border, end the war in Ukraine and get inflation under control.
Still, on Monday, the warning signs were clear.
Due to frigid temperatures, Trump’s swearing-in was held in the Capitol Rotunda, where rioters seeking to keep him in power the last time roamed during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Trump walked into the space from the hall leading to the building’s west front tunnel, where some of the worst hand-to-hand combat between Trump supporters and police occurred that day.
After giving a speech pledging that “never again” would the government “persecute political opponents,” Trump then gave a second, impromptu address to a crowd of supporters. The president lamented that his inaugural address had been sanitized, said he would shortly pardon the Jan. 6 rioters and fumed at last-minute preemptive pardons issued by outgoing President Joe Biden to the members of the congressional committee that investigated the attack.
▶ Read more about Trump’s Inauguration Day
President Donald Trump signs an executive order to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, as White House staff secretary Will Scharf watches. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump speaks as first lady Melania Trump listens at the Commander in Chief Ball, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)