Croatia Bedtime Stories Feature Same-Sex Families for First Time

Zrinka Znidarcic has a new picture-book for her two-year-old son, called My Rainbow Family. At first glance, it looks like many other publications aimed at pre-school children - heavy on full-page, colourful illustrations and light on text. But, for starters, it can be read from the back or the front - as there are two different stories which meet in the middle.

And then there are the characters. A little girl with two fathers. And a young boy with two mothers. It is the first time that a children's book in Croatia has depicted families with same-sex parents. But it is a direct challenge to conservative organisations backed by the Catholic Church. Five years ago, they forced a referendum which blocked the then government's plans to legalise same-sex marriage. Now they are taking aim at a children's picture-book.

One organisation, Vigilare, says its mission is to "promote the original (natural) identity of marriage… between a man and a wife in which children are raised". It called My Rainbow Family "homosexual propaganda" and urged the education minister to ban it from schools. Vigilare did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

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Michael Kors Buys Italy's Versace Fashion House For $2.12 Billion

Fashion company Michael Kors is buying Versace, the Italian luxury brand founded by Gianni Versace in 1978, for $2.12 billion. The two fashion houses made the announcement Tuesday, one day after speculation spread about a potential deal. Donatella Versace, the artistic director of the Milan-based fashion house who helped lead the company after her brother's death in 1997, said it's the perfect time for the company to join with Michael Kors. "It has been more than 20 years since I took over the company along with my brother Santo and daughter Allegra," Donatella Versace said in a news release. "I am proud that Versace remains very strong in both fashion and modern culture."

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The leader of the Islamic State group urged followers to burn their enemies everywhere and target "media centers of the infidels," according to an audio recording released Thursday that the extremists said was by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The reclusive leader of Islamic State, who has only appeared in public once, also vowed to continue fighting and lavished praise on his jihadis for their valor in the battlefield — despite the militants' loss of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in July. "You soldiers of the caliphate, heroes of Islam and carriers of banners: light a fire against your enemies," said al-Baghdadi, a shadowy cleric who has been surrounded by controversy since the Sunni terror group emerged from al-Qaida in Iraq, its forerunner. Russian officials said in June there was a "high probability" that al-Baghdadi had died in a Russian airstrike on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group's de facto capital. US officials later said

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