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From the GNR newsroom: Its the Monday Good News Roundup [1]
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Date: 2023-05-01
Welcome back to the Monday Good News Roundup, where your friends at the GNR Newsroom (Myself, Killer300 and Bhu) bring you the good news to start your week right.
Not much happening to me in my personal life, this week it looks like we’re finishing up on the April showers, here’s hoping for some May flowers incoming. But until then, please enjoy the news of the world, compliments of us.
Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News, the network announced Monday morning. In a statement the network said "FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."
I know its been covered by everyone by now, but sometimes the good news bears repeating. So long Fucker Carlson, may you not be missed by anyone ever.
We can lower child poverty and food insecurity; the disadvantaged can get jobs and health insurance, people without a bank account can get one, and people with debt can pay it down. Not only can we do these things, we did them. If you had told me in March 2020 or even March 2021, when the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan, respectively, passed, all that we would accomplish, I would have looked at you in disbelief. Let’s talk about what’s good in the recovery; there is much to talk about in that respect. Yes, inflation is a problem, but it’s coming down. If we don’t talk about the good from the recovery, it could slip through our fingers, and that’s a real danger now. Fighting inflation is important, but so is fighting for the progress in this recovery.
We’re made a lot of progress in the past three years, lets make sure we can keep going next year when its election time.
At that point the movement appeared dead, but activists found a new avenue to call for change during the build up to the 2023 general elections. To push for a new government that would meet their demands, they helped start the Obidient movement, which made them a major force in Nigeria politics. During the pre-election campaigns, this new generation of Nigerian youth, also known as the Soro Soke, or Speak Up, generation, made it clear that if they could unite, they had the numbers to overthrow the current political order run by a few old and corrupt men. This old guard had allegedly ordered the security forces to shoot at them during the EndSARS protests. About eight months before the elections, Peter Obi, the former governor of Anambra State and a well-known sympathizer of the EndSARS movement, announced that he would run as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party. The party aims to promote and defend social democratic principles and ideals to achieve social justice, progress and unity. However, since it was formed over two decades ago, the party has never threatened the major parties that dominate Nigerian politics — winning only one governorship.
They can beat us down, but they cannot destroy us.
Now, Ortiz is among a number of workers with Escucha Mi Voz who are laying the groundwork for a unionization campaign at Tyson and West Liberty. A union, she believes, would boost wages, sick leave, bonuses, vacation time and, most importantly, respect. In more than 20 interviews with current and former workers at both meatpacking plants, In These Times heard complaints ranging from understaffing to abusive supervisors to punitive attendance policies. Meatpacking workers say a union would also address the breakneck pace of the line and the unremitting production pressures, which they say make injuries all but certain. They lift heavy turkey carcasses onto hooks at West Liberty and cut into pork limbs with dull knives at Tyson. Workers say they have soiled themselves trying to keep the line going by skipping bathroom breaks and suffered cuts and stab wounds from wielding knives elbow-to-elbow. The union drive is just a few months old and is freighted with risk. With 1,400 workers at Tyson and an estimated 600 at West Liberty (the company would not confirm), it would be the largest U.S. meatpacking drive since 2012, when 1,200 Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant workers in Alabama joined the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Mid-South Council. The largest in recent memory was the 2008 unionization of the world’s largest hog slaughterhouse, in Tar Heel, N.C., where 5,000 workers were processing some 32,000 hogs a day. That campaign took 15 years.
I think they can take down Tyson. After all, everyone knows Tyson is chicken. ;P
The electric vehicle revolution is well underway in the U.S., but the country still has a long way to go in order to meet state and federal targets for decarbonizing transportation. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids have skyrocketed in popularity in the U.S. in recent years (despite a Covid-induced dip in 2020). In 2022, 928,884 of them were sold in the U.S. — an annual record. That trend only accelerated in the first quarter of 2023, when almost 300,000 EVs and plug-in hybrids were sold, accounting for a record 8.4 percent of all U.S. new car sales. That’s nearly as many as were sold in all of 2020.
Great news for electric vehicles. Every little bit to help the earth.
Methanol is a ubiquitous chemical, used to make everything from paints and plastics to cosmetics and car parts. Increasingly, however, companies are eyeing a new purpose for the compound: a low-carbon fuel for cargo ships. Today, most ocean-crossing vessels burn petroleum products, including tar-like heavy fuel oil, in their massive diesel engines. As a result, international shipping accounts for about 3 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, along with significant amounts of smog-forming and health-harming air pollutants. As shipping’s emissions rise, and as maritime regulators crack down on pollution, the industry is searching for cleaner ways to power the behemoth vessels that underpin the modern economy. Methanol, or CH 3 OH, is gaining favor as an alternative “drop-in” fuel that can be used immediately as companies develop truly zero-carbon solutions. Methanol doesn’t produce harmful soot or particulate matter when burned. If made from renewables, the chemical can sharply curb carbon dioxide emissions compared to using oil-based fuels, though it still emits some CO 2 .
Again, I love living in the future.
Washington has become the 23rd state to end the death penalty after Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed Senate Bill 5087 into law on Thursday. The bill also bans forced chemical castration as a punishment for a crime. The measure was passed in the state Legislature earlier this month. “I initiated a moratorium against the death penalty in Washington State in 2014, and our rationale for that decision was affirmed by our (state) Supreme Court decision in 2018, when they invalidated the death penalty statute,” Inslee said during the bill signing Thursday.
That’s certainly good news.
he anniversary of the Armenian Genocide is marked every year on April 24. That was the date in 1915 when hundreds of Armenian community leaders were arrested by the government of the Ottoman Empire in the capital Constantinople, now known as Istanbul. At the time, Armenians lived throughout what is modern-day Turkey. Modern scholars estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Turkish government, and around 800,000 to 1.2 million were deported during World War I. Most ended up in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Russia, Europe and the Americas. During that period, Greek, Assyrian and Yezidi communities were also massacred and forced to flee into exile. April is also Genocide Awareness Month. Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place this month every year, as do commemorations for genocides in Cambodia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. For much of the 20th century, commemorations of mass killings and genocide have focused on remembering the dead as victims and condemning the perpetrators. Read news coverage based on evidence, not tweets But recent research has taken a broader view, recognizing that mass violence takes place because of many complex factors. Besides political, economic and cultural currents, the resistance and resilience of the people who were targeted are coming to the fore of scholarly work and public understanding.
Its important to remember those who fought back against their own destruction. They didn’t give up, we can’t give up either.
And yet, it’s hard not to draw two conclusions: a) Trump is cleaning DeSantis’ clock; and b) in doing so Trump is exposing all of DeSantis’ myriad flaws as a presidential candidate. Trump is winning on three levels in his shadow primary against DeSantis. First, to the extent that polls matter this early in the race, Trump has widened the gap between himself and DeSantis since the start of 2023. Second, Trump has out-hustled and out-maneuvered DeSantis on endorsements from elected officials. FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich recently weighed in on this:
DeSantis will never be president as long as Donald Trump is around. Desantis is not the RC cola to Trumps Pepsi, he’s not even the Faygo, he’s the shitty store brand soda you drink when you’re too flat broke for the real stuff.
Now for a quick video break: This time on wind turbines!
Many people think Nazi Germany was beaten only through military violence, and mainly by men. As Barack Obama said in 2009: “Nonviolence could not have halted Hitler’s armies”. In fact, non-violent action was widely used in resisting Nazism. Brave women often led it. They later got little recognition, though this is now changing. Women in nations such as France, Germany and Holland gathered intelligence, founded resistance groups, published underground media and coordinated people-smuggling operations. Some engaged in sabotage. Their networking and people skills were invaluable, and their lack of visibility under a sexist regime was an asset. Some of these brave women sacrificed their lives for the cause. It is useful to consider their impact today and how such female-led, non-violent movements might help people around the world resist dictatorships and invasions, such as in Ukraine.
Resistance takes many forms, and those who can’t fight with their fists will oppose evil in other ways.
And now its everyone’s favorite segment (definitely mine) the GNR Lightning round!
There is no sixth mass extinction
Volcanic microbe eats CO2 astonishingly quickly
First lung transplant performed by a robot
Greener control towers coming to an airport near you
Colorado passes first US right to repair law for farmers
How AI can help the environment
Minnesota senate passes bills to protect abortions, provide trans refuge, and ban conversion therapy
I was befuddled last week by some of the disappointed reactions to the $787,500,000 settlement in the Dominion v. Fox lawsuit. Trust me, nobody wanted to see this case go to trial more than I did — I’m a co-host of a legal affairs podcast and was expecting weeks of sweet, sweet content. But when you’re offered a settlement this enormous, you take it. And I don’t get it when people look at this payout — about half of last year’s total annual Fox Corporation profits — and conclude the network got off easy.
Despite some cynical opinions, Fox got hit hard by that lawsuit, and that’s before they had to jettison Carlson. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end for that blight on humanity.
Most abortion news is bad news so here we are with some good news, albeit qualified: Abortion bans failed this week in the Republican-controlled states of South Carolina and Nebraska. Abortion remains legal in both states until 22 weeks of pregnancy for now, though South Carolina’s clinics only offer care up to 14 weeks. In South Carolina, lawmakers were considering H.B. 3774, a near-total ban with exceptions for rape or incest only through the first trimester. Five women senators (three Republicans and two Democrats) opposed the bill and it failed by one vote. State Sen. Sandy Senn (R) said that abortion laws “have always been, each and every one of them, about control—plain and simple. And in the Senate, the males have all the control.”
Once again, Abortion ban proves to be the white elephant which is driving the GOP to ruin (Oh that’s good I have to remember that one).
merica’s gas- and coal-burning power plants generate some 60 percent of the nation’s electricity every year, spewing billions of tons of planet-warming gases in the process. Even as wind and solar energy see record deployment, the power sector remains the country’s second-biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, after transportation. In the coming weeks, the Biden administration is reportedly set to unveil its plan for dramatically reducing carbon dioxide pollution from existing and future power plants by 2040. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose stringent pollution limits that leave operators with a few key ways to comply: by retiring fossil-fuel assets and building renewables, by replacing gas with zero-carbon fuels like green hydrogen — or by installing large, expensive systems that capture carbon dioxide directly from plants’ smokestacks.
Gas and coal aren’t gone yet, but we can at least make them clean up their acts a bit.
Corporations have become the biggest driver of new clean energy projects in the U.S., but many of the projects they’re bankrolling face years-long backlogs to get connected to the grid. And even when they do get plugged in, big corporate clean power deals aren’t necessarily helping drive down fast-rising utility bills for communities least able to afford them. On Monday, Google and clean energy developer EDP Renewables (EDPR) North America unveiled a novel approach to solving these challenges — what some are calling “synthetic” community solar.
Good for Google. For the record I do not use google, I use Ecoasia. A search engine that plants tree’s as you use it. But Google is usually my second choice.
First, Omar said she will keep pushing for measures such as guaranteed income through legislative proposals like the SUPPORT Act. The SUPPORT act would ostensibly send $1,200 per month to every adult — and $600 per month to every child — through local governments via cash payments over a five-year period. “This bill builds on successful guaranteed income pilot programs we have seen in localities nationwide, including in Minneapolis and St. Paul,” she wrote.
Not gonna lie, getting 1,200 dollars a month would solve a lot of my problems. I really hope this goes somewhere.
And after all, isn’t the GNR all about hope? We’ve made the impossible possible before, and we can do it again. We saved our Country from Trump, and we’re not gonna stop fighting any time soon. But for now, have a good week.
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