Now some good news: four people have been convicted in last April's hate crime against CBS News employees, Ryan Smith and Dick Jefferson (pictured after the attacks). The men were leaving a bar while on vacation in St. Maarten's when they got into an altercation with four French nationals.

The nationals were incensed over the duo and their friend's apparent homo ways and took it out with the help of a tire iron. The force of their blows left Jefferson's skull cracked and gave Smith temporary brain damage.

CBS coincidentally reports:

Three citizens of the island's French half — Glen Cockly, Micheline Delaney and Allan Daniel — and a man from the nearby French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, Michel Javois, were found guilty of public violence and grievous bodily harm by Judge Jan Bosch.

Bosch determined that Javois, nicknamed "Duracell," was the one who assailed Smith and Jefferson — who are employees of CBS News in New York — with a tire iron as they left a bar with friends on April 6 while vacationing in St. Maarten.

When the story first broke, many debated whether or not Smith and Jefferson should have actively shrouded their homosexuality, as they were in a region known for its anti-homo vibe.

Smith notes: "It was because we were gay. Period. There is no question."

Of the verdict, Jefferson said: "Personally, I'm happy they reached a guilty verdict. Emotionally, it raises a lot more questions than it answers." Still, he's not entirely convinced people will get the message:

The people of St. Maarten should also ask whether the sentence sends the clear message that if you wrongly attack visitors, the punishment for endangering the island’s lifeblood will be steep. Also, does today’s sentence soothe the anxiety of visitors who now worry if they will be treated fairly should they become a victim of a crime?

• In St. Maarten, the trial against four men accused of brutally assaulting American Ryan Smith and his friends is put on hold — so Smith can return to the island to testify. [AP]

• Christina Aguilera, pissed that her friend Lance Bass can't marry boyfriend Reichen Lehmkuhl, comes out to publicly support gay marriage. [IE]

• In Mississippi, Willie Lee Mack pleaded guilty to the 2003 stabbing murder of his employer Gregory Acker, who Mack claimed "chased chased him with a baseball bat after Mack rebuffed a sexual advance." He was sentenced to 18 years. [AP]

• Senator Hillary Clinton is holding up the renewal of the 1990 Ryan White Act, a federal law passed to fight HIV/AIDS. She claims she wants more funding for her home state of New York, but critics say her political ambitions are the driving force behind the stall. [WaPo]

• In South Africa, cabinet members have moved to push through a gay marriage bill, foreshadowing the first African country to grant gays and lesbians the right to marry. [Reuters]

If you've ready Queerty for any length of time, then certainly you've happened upon our exclusive interview with Ryan Smith, a survivor of an April brutal gay bashing attack in St. Maarten. Since then, Ryan has received plenty of media attention and the effort to prosecute his attackers continues. Among the outlets covering the story is Out magazine, which originally posted an excerpt online from its August issue that generated much feedback – negative feedback – from readers. The excerpt seemed to slant the article's position as sympathetic to the men who attacked Smith and his friends, thanks to paragraphs like this:

On April 12, Time magazine’s Web site ran a story headlined, “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?” It focused on antigay atrocities in Jamaica, and argued that “much of the rest of the Caribbean also has a long history of intense homophobia. Islands like Barbados still criminalize homosexuality, and some seem to be following Jamaica’s more violent example”—a point illustrated only by Jefferson and Smith’s experience in St. Maarten.

Such exaggerations were fueled by a handful of local newspapers. First, a hateful piece in the tiny St. Maarten newspaper Today praised the attack, and mockingly regretted that “Gay bashing is now a no-no.” The island’s largest newspaper, The Daily Herald, condemned the beating but suggested that “if the culprits felt the need to prove their manhood…they at least could have had the guts to fight them fairly, with their bare hands.” But The Daily Herald’s coverage of the attack has been fairly aggressive; a Herald reporter interviewed Smith and Jefferson in the hospital—which is more than can be said for the police.

Regarding the Caribbean more generally, the media’s hasty cries of homophobia were inflated. True, eight Caribbean countries still have antisodomy statutes on the books, but only Cuba and Jamaica have a reputation for enforcing those laws. Furthermore, it’s difficult to argue that island cultures—excepting Jamaica and Haiti—are overwhelmingly homophobic. Caribbean attitudes toward gay people range as widely as attitudes in the southeastern United States. Yet this isolated incident in St. Maarten almost immediately inspired reckless generalizations about the people of that region and ill-conceived threats from some gay leaders itching for vengeance.

In an updated version of its online item, Out decided to publish the entire story to counter readers' claims of sanctioned homophobic violence. And if you give the full article a read through, you might agree that the story isn't skewed against Ryan Smith and the survivors, but against a group of people so complacent with violence against any person, gay or straight. And that's how it should be.

Trouble in Paradise—The Complete Story [Out]
Earlier: Happy Endings: Out Blaming Ryan Smith For His Gay Bashing?
Related: Ryan Smith Speaks
Related: All Ryan Smith coverage

Indentified only by his nickname "Duracell," the fourth suspect in the St. Maarten gay bashing of CBS employees Ryan Smith and Richard Jefferson has been arrested — after turning himself in. He's accused of beating the two friends with a tire iron that fateful day in April and has been hiding out in St. Martin, the French side of the island.

Duracell's identity hasn't been released In accordance with Dutch law prohibiting suspects to be named before they stand trial. While we await the trial – which could very well be months away – brush up on Ryan Smith's story about the attacks. Especially the part where the legal system is inherently biased against him and Richard already.

St. Maarten arrests main suspect in beating of gay NYC tourists [AP]
Related: Ryan Smith Speaks

• The gay couple who was kicked out of a Berkeley skating rink when they were practicing for the upcoming Gay Games (they were holding hands! scandal!) has reached a settlement with the rink's owners. Berkeley Iceland (a) will holddiversity training for its employees, (b) donate to the Gay Games, and (c) offer a gay skating night each month for the next year. So there. Honestly, only a bunch of queens would have the energy to come up with a settlement this creative. [SFGate]

• Youth prisons in Hawai'i will become more gay-friendly, and the state will pay $625,000 in a settlement with three LGBT youth inmates who say they were abused by prison staff. If you're going to go to prison and you're a kid, apparently Hawai'i is the place to do it now. [AP]

• A national "gay talk" hotline is being established in China, offering advice on coming out, HIV, and legal issues. And then the Chinese government will track down everyone who calls and arrest them. [ChinaDaily]

• Two more people have been arrested in St. Maarten, after the gay-bashing beatings of Richard Jefferson and Ryan Smith. When the Jefferson called the police to report the beating, St. Maarten's police refused to investigate, in an apparent attempt to protect the island's tourism-friendly image. So Jefferson brought news cameras to the island and tracked down the criminals himself. Ryan, by the way, is still--STILL--in Miami, recooperating from his injuries. [Newsday]

•...and this isn't news or anything, it's just funny. Totally Not Safe For Work. And random. Where does this guy work? [AssShot]

• The police in St. Maarten have arrested two people in connection with the beatings of CBS producers Ryan Smith and Dick Jefferson. They were on the FRENCH side of the island! No wonder the police couldn't find them. [365 Gay]

• Openly gay actor George Takei (aka Mr. Sulu on Star Trek) will be joining the Soulforce Freedom Ride. [insert cheesy Star Trek play-on-words here]. [AP]

•Scott Brison, an openly gay Member of the Canadian Parliament (and former Conservative) will be announcing his candidacy to run for the head of the Liberal party this week, pulling the centrist party a bit more to the left (and into the pink). [FF Times]

• The Arizona bill that would have given married people preference in adoptions over "single" people failed by one vote on Monday. [AP]

• Former superstar Zimbabwe DJ Kevin Ncube has come out as gay. Known as the "Prince of the Airwaves" during his tenure at the ZBC, he is now living a happy homosexual life in England. [NewZimbabwe]

• Two Albanian lesbians, one 54 and the other 24, who met while living illegally in the UK, are now applying for asylum as committed partners who want to raise the younger woman's child. Call us cynical, but this whole situation seems odd and a little too convenient. [365 Gay]

• Even though it may be the next country to legalize gay marriage, South Africa still has major civil rights work to do. In a new report it's been revealed that 1 in 5 gay schoolchildren in Pietermaritzburg and Durban are raped or sexually assaulted, either by other students, or by teachers and principals. The statistics are higher among gay black students. [News24]

• HIV can be more virulent depending on the virus subtype. Africa is home to many cases of subtype D, the most virulent, which could be contributing to the pandemic there. [BBC]

• Someone on the island of St. Maarten has finally expressed some sympathy for the homophobic attack on Ryan Smith and Dick Jefferson. An apology is nice, but we are still waiting for the police to do their job. [Pink News]

• Dick Jefferson, victim of the brutal beating in St. Maarten, is going back to the island Friday to buy a gun and get all vigilante on some folks meet with government officials and appeal to the people of St. Maarten for the crime to be investigated, since police refused to investigate the issue. The head of St. Maarten's tourism bureau promised he would conduct a full investigation; but somehow, a guy sitting in a kiosk with a bunch of maps doesn't instill great confidence in tracking down the perps.

There are going to be a few gay bashers anywhere you go, yes, life goes on; but it's the fact that police did nothing still makes us wonder how many other gay bashings have been covered up in the Caribbean. Judging by the police's lack of interest, they weren't shocked, so obviously this happens all the time. Luckily the St. Maarten attackers happen to gay-bash two employees of CBS News. Oops.

From Jefferson's press release:

“I am heading back,” Jefferson says, “because the longer this case goes unsolved the more harm the people of St. Maarten are inflicting upon themselves and the reputation of the island as a vacation spot.”

Too late, dude. We're just going to go to Vieques instead.