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From the GNR newsroom, its the Monday Good News Roundup [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-14
Its that time again friends, that time when the GNR Newsroom (myself, Killer300 and Bhu) bring you all the stories to start your week off right, its the Monday Good News Roundup. We got a lot this week, including a double sized Lightning Round, so lets get right into it.
I sipped a wheat beer while striking up a conversation with a resident in Rochester’s newest neighborhood. His herding dog begged for attention as we randomly shared mutual knowledge surrounding the dynamics of mixed use, transit-oriented improvements in Rochester. Such was the vibe while enjoying a brew at Fattey Beer Company’s Rochester location, which happens to occupy the space that used to house the East side of a sunken moat of an urban expressway.
More good news out of my own backyard. We ended last week on good Rochester news now we start with more. Full circle!
In fact, have some more good Rochester news
If you walk down Union Street in Rochester, New York, a road lined with new apartment buildings, trees, and a bike lane, you wouldn’t know that it used to be a highway. “It feels like an organically built neighborhood,” says Erik Frisch, deputy commissioner of neighborhood and business development for the city of Rochester. But a decade ago, these blocks were part of the Inner Loop, a sunken, six-lane freeway that circled the downtown.
We can make cities a place of beauty and wonder (and I’m NOT talking about Gentrification. Fuck that noise, we can make it nice for the people currently living there as well without forcing them out).
Early turnout is off the charts for the Ohio special election that will determine whether it becomes harder to amend the state constitution—an election conspicuously timed to come before a crucial abortion measure appears on state ballots this fall. Voting ends Tuesday evening on Ohio’s Issue 1, which would to raise the winning threshold for a referendum from a simple majority to 60 percent of the vote. (The pro-choice position is voting “no.”) If the measure passes, the new rules would take effect before November, thereby kneecapping a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. But “this is gubernatorial-level turnout,” Regine Johnson, deputy director of the board of elections in Stark County, which includes the city of Canton, told the Associated Press.
Once again the Abortion issue proves to be the millstone around the GOP’s neck. We wont go back.
Humanity may be in the throes of another breakthrough that's every bit as impactful as the invention of the transistor and the advent (and eventual vindication) of quantum computing. LK-99, as it's been named, is a new compound that researchers believe will enable the fabrication of room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductors. Initially published by a Korean team last Friday, frantic work is underway throughout the research world to validate the paper's claims. For now, two separate sources have already provided preliminary confirmations that this might actually be the real thing — Chinese researchers have even posted video proof. Strap in, this is a maglev-powered, superconducting ride.
Living in the future is awesome.
he Biden administration has proposed a new energy-efficiency rule for residential water heaters, a move that would jump-start the adoption of energy-saving heat-pump water heaters and significantly reduce carbon emissions from U.S. homes. The federal Department of Energy says the proposal would eliminate more than 500 million metric tons of carbon emissions over 30 years — equal to the combined annual emissions of 63 million U.S. homes. Overall, the agency says the new standards would save consumers more than $11 billion in annual energy costs and shrink energy use from water heaters in homes by 21 percent.
The Biden administration does it again.
Baked bread, crispy tortilla chips, smoked sausages, roasted nuts — all of these finished foods tend to share at least one thing: They’re typically prepared in large commercial ovens that require immense amounts of heat. Most of the time, facilities make that heat by burning fossil gas, cooking up harmful emissions in the process. Now, the movement to electrify nearly everything is coming to the Cheetos plants and cheesecake factories of Southern California and, potentially, to other parts of the country. Last week, air-pollution regulators adopted a first-in-the-nation rule that aims to dramatically reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO x ) from hundreds of commercial food ovens in the South Coast district. The area includes large swaths of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and it’s home to top food manufacturers such as Bimbo Bakery, Frito-Lay and chip-maker Snak-King.
Now you can enjoy your favorite chips guilt free!
On July 20, 2023, the city council of Austin, Texas, passed resolutions that legalize three homes on every single-family lot by right, expedite the approval of three- and fourplexes, and more than halve the minimum lot size requirement in areas zoned for single-family homes. Co-sponsors of the resolutions hope that taking a step toward welcoming more of the missing-middle infill will abate the city’s ongoing housing crisis.
More good housing news.
More than 11,000 service workers in Los Angeles are among the latest employees to go on strike this summer as people across industries as diverse as acting and nursing have demanded fair pay, better staffing, and more comprehensive benefits. In the Los Angeles service worker strike — which includes sanitation workers, airport employees, traffic officers, and engineers — a core issue centers on hundreds of vacancies that have long gone unfilled. Union workers say they’ve had to shoulder added tasks due to those staffing shortages, and that has left people extremely overworked and forced to take on recurring overtime. These stressors have led Los Angeles city workers in the union to authorize the first strike they’ve staged in over 40 years.
The Summer of strikes continues, its a thing of beauty to behold.
Narrowly avoiding, for now, what might have been the largest strike in United States history of workers employed by a single corporation, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters came to a tentative agreement with the United Parcel Service (UPS) in late July 2023 over contract negotiations. While the union did not win everything it wanted, it secured a majority of its demands in what it called “the most historic tentative agreement for workers in the history of UPS.” Union members will vote on whether to accept the deal between August 3 and 22. There are numerous lessons to be learned from what has transpired between the Teamsters and UPS during this year’s #HotLaborSummer.
Unions really are the best aren’t they?
The women in Russia’s military families are posing a subtle but significant challenge to Vladimir Putin’s handling of the war in Ukraine by engaging in a form of political activism best described as ‘patriotic dissent’. When Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, many expected the mothers of Russia’s soldiers to be at the forefront of anti-war street protests, based on their activism during Moscow’s previous wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Some soldiers’ mothers have expressed opposition to the war and participated in public protests, but for the most part their responses are more complex than straightforward condemnation – or support.
Putin’s war on the Ukraine continues to be an unmitigated disaster for him as opposition from all sides continues to mount. We can only hope this is the beginning of the end for that puffed up thug.
July was the hottest month on record—possibly the hottest in the history of human civilization — and August is bringing more scorching temperatures and supercharged storms. On July 16, the heat index at the Persian Gulf International Airport weather station in Iran climbed to 152 degrees Fahrenheit, a level that tests humanity’s ability to survive. Meanwhile, in vast swaths of the United States, people watched smoke from Canadian wildfires turn their skies noxious hues of orange and gray, only to then be hit with storms and heat waves. The scientific consensus has long held that climate change is human-made and real. But this summer, it seems a threshold has been crossed. Amid this climate crisis, 1,400 locomotive builders and clerical workers on strike in Erie, Penn. are modeling how unions — and workers walking off the job — can make climate justice demands of an employer.
Two of my favorite things: Unions and climate action.
Another Good Inflation Report - The Bureau of Labor Statistics released their most important inflation measure this morning, the Consumer Price Index, and it increased 0.2% in July, or 2.4% annualized. Over the last 3 months the CPI has increased 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.2%, which is 0.16%, or 1.9% annualized. By comparison in the spring of 2022, inflation was running at close to 9%-10% on an annualized basis. The number the Fed is shooting for is 2% annualized, so this is very good news, and yes the good economic news just keeps on coming. GDP and job growth remain strong, inflation is way down, the deficit is down, recession fears have abated, wage growth remains strong and real wages (taking into account inflation) are back firmly in positive territory again. This is all very good news.
Inflation continues to abate. I’ve noticed it myself; food prices seem to actually be going down a bit.
Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a nationwide settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would shield members of the Sackler family who own the company from civil lawsuits over the toll of opioids. The justices agreed to a request from the Biden administration to put the brakes on an agreement reached last year with state and local governments. In addition, the high court will hear arguments before the end of the year over whether the settlement can proceed.
Good. The Opioid crisis is still hurting a lot of people, and these jerks should not be let off the hook.
Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has received another helping of bad news amid a scramble to reverse his campaign's meteoric drop in national polls for the 2024 Republican nomination. A top Republican pollster released results on Thursday showing that Florida's Republican governor has slipped to third place in the Republican field behind businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, a grim milestone for a candidate many once considered the best option to unseat former President Donald Trump at the top of the field. Per a survey of 2,000 voters nationwide, the Republican-leaning pollster Cygnal—which holds an 'A' rating with poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight—DeSantis is now the preferred option of just 10 percent of the electorate, and is running virtually neck-and-neck with Ramaswamy (11 percent).
DeSantis just got knocked down to third place in the competition for biggest clown in the GOP circus. That’s gotta sting. I feel so bad for him. Oh wait. I DON’T.
And now its time, as promised, for our extra long lightning round.
What could go right? More countries abolish the death penalty
Full clean ahead! Can shipping steer away from fossil fuels?
Solar power to the rescue as Europe’s energy system weathers extreme heat
Saving the bald eagle
Is deforestation in the Amazon falling?
When marine biodiversity reduces foreign debt by 450 million
Chance discovery helps fight against Malaria
Iraq eliminates trachoma as public health concern
vital importance of a new pill for postpartum depression
More gay men can give blood
US Scientists achieve net energy gain in second Fusion test
Drones reaching new heights in Nepal’s fight against climate change
Groundbreaking brain implant restores hand control and hope for paralyzed man
New study opens new way for Black Americans to trace their ancestry
DOE commits 450 Million for solar panels in Puerto Rico
16 states mare it harder to vote this year: 26 made it easier
Coal miners hail rule to slow rise of black lung
No, most high school boys are not conservative
Connecticut has done something amazing with crime
Gender pay gap narrowest on record
Veterans see historic expansion of benefits for toxic exposure
Woo! That’s a lot of good news isn’t it? That’s all I have in me for this week. Be back next week for more good news.
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