(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Good News Roundup for May 9, 2023 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-09 🍿 Repellent Republicans Rushing toward Ruin 🍿 Beau explains why Jack Smith’s new focus on wire fraud is the biggest threat to tfg x YouTube Video How DeSantis accidentally handed Disney a potent weapon against him Not too surprising coming from dumbass DeSantis. From The Washington Post (gift link): When the Walt Disney Co. went looking for evidence to feature in its new lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, its lawyers found much of what they needed in DeSantis’s own recently published memoir. Buried in Disney’s complaint against DeSantis is something surprising. Numerous quotes taken from “The Courage to be Free” appear to support the company’s central allegation: that the Republican governor improperly wielded state power to punish Disney’s speech criticizing his policies, violating the First Amendment. Memoirs by presidential aspirants often lay out a blueprint for their coming candidacies. DeSantis’s does, too. It boasts extensively about his war on Disney to advertise how he would marshal the powers of the presidency against so-called woke elites. Disney’s lawsuit cites exactly these passages. DeSantis — who signed a law taking control of Disney’s special self-governing district, and moved to nullify the company’s efforts to work around it — repeatedly flouts the truth: These were retaliation against Disney for opposing his “don’t say gay” law limiting classroom discussion of sex and gender. ✂️ This is unusual, says Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute. In such lawsuits, Wilkens notes, you “often have to make inferences” about the motives driving government officials. ...“You have pretty clear statements from Governor DeSantis that he is seeking to punish a corporation for its speech,” Wilkens told me. “That’s prohibited by the First Amendment.” * * * * * Good news from my corner of the world PGE announces major clean energy storage project in Portland This is a big deal, and very good news for Portland. From Oregon Public Broadcasting: Portland General Electric announced on [April 28] it is putting in the second-largest battery storage installation in the United States, at 400 MW of power. The significance of such projects is they diminish the need for power plants that burn fossil fuels that warm the planet. The only larger standalone project in the country is Vistra Moss Landing in California, currently at 400 MW, but it will soon add an additional 350. The Portland project will generate enough electricity for around 260,000 homes, roughly the size of the city, for four hours at full power. Legislative proposal aims to protect Oregonians struggling with debt At the moment, the recalcitrant Republicans in the Oregon House have walked out, denying the House a quorum, so there won’t be any progress on this bill until they can be forced to return. But it has a good chance of passing when a quorum is reached. BTW, Oregon voters passed a ballot measure in 2022 which added language to the Oregon Constitution preventing any lawmaker from running for reelection if they have 10 or more unexcused absences in a single legislative session. The walkout is now in its sixth day, so these Republicans are risking ending their political careers. From Oregon Capital Chronicle: 16% of Oregonians...have debt in collections, a group of 680,000 people who could benefit if Oregon lawmakers pass House Bill 2008. The bill, discussed [on April 27th] in the House Rules Committee, would offer more protections to people who are paying off debt, shielding more of their property, wages and assets from garnishments and court-ordered seizures. The bill would: Raise the amount of take-home pay workers can keep after wage garnishments from $254 to at least $590, the Portland-area minimum wage for a 40-hour work week, or 75% of the check, whichever is more. Provide more protection for people’s housing, including for seniors. Currently, only $40,000 of a home’s value is protected from seizure to pay off debts. That would increase to 33% of the real market value, with all of the home’s real market value protected for seniors 65 years and older. Protect bank accounts with a balance of up to $2,500 from garnishment. The bill would also protect vehicles worth up to $10,000 from court seizure to pay off debts, an increase from $3,000. Target unlawful debt collection practices. It would raise the minimum award for people who successfully sue in court from $200 to $1,000. If damages are more, a person could receive more. ✂️ The National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy group for low-income and vulnerable people, gave Oregon a “D” grade for its lack of consumer protections in a 2022 report that looked at whether states have laws to help people continue to have a liveable income while facing debt collectors and garnishments. [Portland] Starbucks staff strikes after lead organizer was sent home for wearing pro-union shirt The Starbucks union is strong in Portland, as it is around the nation. Howard Schultz is not going to win. From KOIN: A few days after employees at the Portland State University Urban Center Starbucks officially unionized, workers are saying that their lead organizer was sent home from her shift for wearing a pro-union t-shirt. Starbucks Workers United reported that staff members at the PSU Urban Center location filed a petition for union election with the National Labor Relations Board in mid-March. The workers’ rights group announced that the store had unanimously won their union election by a 14-0 vote on Friday, April 28. ...the Urban Center coffee shop is the 16th Portland-area location to unionize. ✂️ On Monday, May 1 — which coincides with “May Day” or International Workers Day — PSU Urban Center baristas say they all went on strike after lead organizer Lauren Smith was told to clock out for wearing a t-shirt that supported the union. According to a release, community members joined the striking staff members later in the afternoon. Labor and community organizer Jamie Partridge said Starbucks managers had to close the store down. Oregon districts turn high school students into future teachers through ‘Grow Your Own’ efforts I was very happy to read about this program. We not only need more teachers, we need more of them to come from minority communities. And it’s definitely a plus when a young teacher decides to stay in the school district they themselves grew up in. From Oregon Public Broadcasting: School leaders are trying to capitalize on the interest of young people...as part of a systematic effort to expand who teaches in the state’s classrooms. In some Oregon districts, teacher recruiting efforts start early – often when future teachers are still in high school. Programs to grow-your-own teachers have the potential to stave off staffing shortages. They also allow schools to diversify the workforce and better reflect the students they serve – while also building strong connections to the community. ✂️ Intro to Education [is] a dual credit class hosted at David Douglas High School where students also receive college credit from Mount Hood Community College. Umatilla teacher Yoshira Escamilla leads her kindergarten class in singing the days of the week. Escamilla teaches at the same school she attended as a child, in the school district she graduated from in 2016. Over the course of the year, students essentially get two courses in one: in the first semester, students learn everything from different teaching strategies and student personalities to education funding and curriculum standards. “And then they’re taking that learning and applying it to their experiences in the classroom the second semester,” [teacher Michelle] Wood said. ✂️ Oregon has financially supported Grow Your Own programs as a way to diversify and grow teaching ranks across the state, as part of a $30 million investment for programs to recruit and retain diverse educators. According to the Oregon Educator Advancement Council, the state is supporting 27 Grow Your Own programs, with funds from the Student Success Act. ✂️ Research has shown that all students tend to benefit from having diverse teachers — not just students of color. * * * * * Good news from around the nation California reparations panel OKs state apology, payments Momentous news. If successfully implemented, this would have an historic impact all over the nation, not just in California. Unfortunately, as the story points out, the cost of the program makes it unlikely it will be approved in its entirety, but if even some of it passes, it will make a very significant difference. From AP: California’s reparations task force voted Saturday to approve recommendations on how the state may compensate and apologize to Black residents for generations of harm caused by discriminatory policies. The nine-member committee, which first convened nearly two years ago, gave final approval at a meeting in Oakland to a hefty list of proposals that now go to state lawmakers to consider for reparations legislation. U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who is cosponsoring a bill in Congress to study restitution proposals for African Americans, at the meeting called on states and the federal government to pass reparations legislation. “Reparations are not only morally justifiable, but they have the potential to address longstanding racial disparities and inequalities,” Lee said. The panel’s first vote approved a detailed account of historical discrimination against Black Californians in areas such as voting, housing, education, disproportionate policing and incarceration and others. ✂️ Saturday’s task force meeting marked a crucial moment in the long fight for local, state and federal governments to atone for discriminatory polices against African Americans. The proposals are far from implementation, however. “There’s no way in the world that many of these recommendations are going to get through because of the inflationary impact,” said Roy L. Brooks, a professor and reparations scholar at the University of San Diego School of Law. Some estimates from economists have projected that the state could owe upwards of $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget, in reparations to Black people. A seismic win went almost unnoticed Here’s the first of two surprisingly good SCOTUS decisions I’m happy to report this morning. From Bill McKibben on Substack: To make a long story short: Eight years ago, journalists—led by Inside Climate News and the LA Times—began publishing stories proving that the big oil companies knew all there was to know about the dangers of global warming back in the 1980s. Among other consequences, this helped convince the legal departments of a number of cities and states to launch lawsuits against the oil giants, on the grounds that they’d done great and knowing damage to the taxpayers of these jurisdictions, who were having to clean up after the endless storms, fires, and floods. This freaked out the industry, because it could see one possible future: a series of judgments large enough to bring it, like the tobacco industry, to its knees, forced to make some kind of general settlement just to stay in business. (This would be karmic payback of a high order, since Big Oil had hired pr veterans from the cigarette companies to help build out their climate denial campaigns). And so they they’ve hit back on every possible front, from apparently launching a massive hacking campaign to surveil their opponents to employing their high-end legal talent in an effort to thwart those lawsuits or, barring that, to move them to federal court, figuring that (thanks in part to their longtime support of the GOP politicians who have filled the judiciary with their partisans) they’d never face real justice there. But the Supreme Court [on April 24th] refused to let them do that—the longstanding precedents giving state and local courts rights to hear cases like this about companies that do business in their jurisdictions were too high to overcome, even for this Court. And so the cases—in Baltimore, in Colorado, in a dozen other jurisdictions around the country—may now proceed. Supreme Court blocks execution of Oklahoma death row inmate Reading Glossip’s thoughtful words as he waited for the SCOTUS verdict makes me very happy that his execution has been blocked. From NBC News: The Supreme Court on Friday blocked the execution of an Oklahoma death row inmate who claims he is innocent in an unusual case in which the state's attorney general agreed that the underlying conviction was unsound. The court in a brief order granted the request made by inmate Richard Glossip, who was convicted of arranging the murder of his boss at the Oklahoma City motel where he worked. The decision means that Glossip’s execution, scheduled for May 18, will no longer go ahead while his court challenge continues. The state has stopped short of saying Glossip is not guilty, meaning there could still be a new trial if the conviction is thrown out. In an "NBC Nightly News" interview hours before the ruling was released, Glossip said he hoped that if he were executed, his death would be the last and would "stop this from happening to anybody else ever in the United States. ... We have mounds of evidence proving my innocence...They still want me dead. And it’s a scary thing to sit here and have to face what I’m facing knowing that they have a chance to amend this. They have a chance to do the right thing. But yet they’re still not wanting to." Glossip said that he still had hope. "I have to believe that we can prevail," he said. "If I’m executed, it will come out that I’m innocent. And the sad thing is, what do you do then? I either let this consume me or I make peace with it and try to live the best I can with what life I have left. And that’s what I try to do,” he said. An Iowa mayor rejected Pride Month. LGBTQ+ residents changed his mind. Finally, an encouraging example of a conservative pol being open to changing his mind. From the Washington Post (gift link): At an Iowa city council meeting Monday, Mayor Rob Green listened for about 90 minutes as dozens of residents and council members criticized him for a recent decision. About a week earlier, Green had rejected a proclamation to recognize June as LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in Cedar Falls, citing his Christian values. But after residents on Monday expressed the embarrassment and fear that had caused them, Green responded. “I’m not a hateful person,” he said as some attendees laughed. The laughter stopped when Green admitted to being among “hundreds” in the city “who don’t understand” the LGBTQ+ community. A few minutes later, Green said he would sign the proclamation as spectators applauded. “We don’t have to agree in order to love each other and to try to understand each other,” the mayor said. In a statement to The Washington Post, Green said he didn’t realize his initial decision would leave some residents feeling unsafe. “One of the mayor’s primary responsibilities is to ensure public safety and welfare, and it was evident from the many comments that I needed to take direct action to ensure the safety and well-being of my constituents in Cedar Falls,” said Green, who has served as mayor since January 2020. “When looking at the decision in those terms, signing was an easy choice to make.” The Glorious Return of a Humble Car Feature Replacing touch screens with buttons is a trend to celebrate. Much, much safer. From Slate: You don’t see a lot of good news about road safety in the United States. Unlike in most peer countries, American roadway deaths surged during the pandemic and have barely receded since. Pedestrian and cyclist fatalities recently hit their highest levels in 40 years, but U.S. transportation officials continue to ignore key contributing factors. ✂️ Happily, there is one area where we are making at least marginal progress: A growing number of automakers are backpedaling away from the huge, complex touch screens that have infested dashboard design over the past 15 years. Buttons and knobs are coming back. The touch screen pullback is the result of consumer backlash, not the enactment of overdue regulations or an awakening of corporate responsibility. Many drivers want buttons, not screens, and they’ve given carmakers an earful about it. Auto executives have long brushed aside safety concerns about their complex displays—and all signs suggest they would have happily kept doing so. But their customers are revolting, which has forced them to pay attention. For well over a decade, touch screens have spread like a rash across dashboards. As with other dangerous trends in car design (see the steering yoke), this one can be traced back to Tesla, which has for years positioned its vehicles as “tablets on wheels.” ✂️ ...the trend toward car touch screens has been a dangerous one for road safety. Those who drove in the 1990s will remember using buttons and knobs to change the radio or adjust the air conditioning without looking down from the steering wheel. Despite their name, touch screens rely on a driver’s eyes as much as her fingers to navigate—and every second that she is looking at a screen is a second that she isn’t looking at the road ahead. Navigating through various levels of menus to reach a desired control can be particularly dangerous; one study by the AAA Foundation concluded that infotainment touch screens can distract a driver for up to 40 seconds, long enough to cover half a mile at 50 mph. * * * * * Good news from around the world UK PM Sunak's Conservatives suffer steep losses in local elections Conservatives losing in Britain as well as here — excellent news! From Reuters: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives suffered steep losses in Friday's local election result, undermining his attempts to revive their fortunes and emboldening the opposition Labour Party before a national vote expected next year. Sunak came to power in October following a year of political scandals, surging inflation and stagnant economic growth. In office he has faced a cost-of-living crisis, mounting concern about healthcare and widespread industrial action. While governing parties often struggle at mid-term elections, the council results in England are the largest, and possibly last, test of voter sentiment before the next national election due by January 2025. With a majority of councils counting their votes, which do not affect the government's majority in parliament, the Conservatives had a net loss of 943 seats by 1802 GMT, while Labour added 486 seats and the Liberal Democrats gained 353. Labour said they were now on track for power at the next general election. A Sky News projection based on the vote share of the early results said Labour could garner 36-38% of the vote at the next national election, making them the biggest party, with the Conservatives at 28-30%. Ten years of Rana Plaza: How safe is Bangladesh garment industry? This is a pretty amazing turnaround in just ten years. From Al Jazeera: [On April 24, 2013] Rana Plaza, the nine-storey building that housed [five garment factories], collapsed into a heap of bricks, machines and factory bolts. ...by the time a weeklong rescue operation ended, a total of 1,134 lives were lost beneath the rubble. ✂️ The Rana Plaza disaster had a profound and lasting negative effect on the lives of its survivors. But for the readymade garment (RMG) industry of Bangladesh – the mainstay of its $460bn economy – it brought titanic shifts. From shoddy sweatshops that cared little for the working conditions of its workers, more than 80 percent of Bangladesh’s 3,200 RMG factories are now internationally compliant with safety and security standards, according to data released by the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturer and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the country’s apex trade body for apparel producers. At present, the South Asian nation is home to half of the world’s top 100 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Designs (LEED)-certified green industrial units, according to a report in the Business Standard newspaper in February. In fact, a firm called Green Textile Limited topped the 2023 LEED list prepared by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). ✂️ Bangladesh also amended its labour law twice – in 2013 and 2018 – to safeguard workers’ rights and to ensure safety at the workplace. * * * * * Good news in medicine Birth control pills aren’t available over the counter in U.S. That could change. Making birth control pills more easily available is a vital step in reclaiming our reproductive rights. From The Washington Post (gift link): For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to allow a daily contraceptive to be sold OTC — over the counter. Next week, the agency’s outside experts are expected to meet to discuss an OTC request from a French company that makes a contraceptive called Opill. Birth control pills are available in more than 100 countries without a prescription. The FDA could decide on the application by the end of the summer. If it approves the OTC switch, it would mark the latest milestone in a reproductive health landscape shaken by seismic legal and political upheavals during the past year. This month marks the 63rd anniversary of the FDA’s approval of the first birth control pill — a move that transformed American society. ✂️ Now, a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the nationwide right to abortion, the pill should immediately be made more widely available, say reproductive health advocates and medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association. About 46 percent of U.S. pregnancies are unintended, according to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute, a U.S. research organization that supports reproductive rights. African Psychedelic Plant Medicine Inspires Two New Drugs to Treat Addiction and Depression This is especially encouraging news, since the drugs based on this plant appear to help opioid addicts who have not been helped by other treatments. From Good News Network: A traditional African psychedelic plant medicine has inspired two new drugs to treat addiction and depression. Ibogaine has been used for thousands of years during shamanistic rituals as a hallucinogen, to suppress hunger and tiredness, and even as an aphrodisiac. But ibogaine, the main active ingredient of Tabernanthe iboga, a West African shrub that grows in the Congo and Angola, can be fatal and even in smaller doses can cause heart problems. Now scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) have developed two new drug candidates for potentially treating addiction and depression, modelled on the pharmacology of ibogaine. … Rates of addiction to opioid pain medication in the US are extremely high. Sales of these drugs have tripled since the 1990s, alongside a commensurate increase in overdose deaths. There is serious interest in the US for studying ibogaine as a way to reverse opioid withdrawal symptoms, as one observational study found it “was associated with substantive effects on opioid withdrawal symptoms and drug use in subjects for whom other treatments had been unsuccessful.” * * * * * Good news in science Small acts of kindness are frequent and universal, study finds No surprise to us Gnusies, right? From Science Daily: A new study by UCLA sociologist Giovanni Rossi and an international team of collaborators finds that people rely on each other for help constantly. In the study, published in Scientific Reports, the authors -- who also included researchers at universities in Australia, Ecuador, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. -- explore the human capacity for cooperation. They found that people signal a need for assistance, such as asking someone to pass them a utensil, once every couple of minutes. And the research revealed that those requests for help do not go unanswered: Across cultures, people comply with these small requests far more often than they decline them. On the rare occasions when people do decline, they explain why. Those human tendencies -- to help others when needed and to explain when such help can't be given -- transcends cultural differences, suggesting that, deep down, people from all cultures have more similar cooperative behaviors than prior research has established. ✂️ The preference for compliance held across all cultures and was unaffected by whether the interaction was among family or non-family members. People helped without explanation, but when they declined, 74% of the time they gave an explicit reason. That suggests that while people decline helping only for a good reason, they give help unconditionally, without needing to explain why they are doing it. A Cypress in Chile Could Soon Break The Record For World's Oldest Tree Thank goodness this miracle of nature is being protected! From Science Alert: In a forest in southern Chile, a giant tree has survived for thousands of years and is in the process of being recognized as the oldest in the world. Known as the "Great Grandfather," the trunk of this tree measuring four meters (13 feet) in diameter and 28 meters tall is also believed to contain scientific information that could shed light on how the planet has adapted to climatic changes. Believed to be more than 5,000 years old, it is on the brink of replacing Methuselah, a 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine found in California in the United States, as the oldest tree on the planet. ​"It's a survivor, there are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long," said Antonio Lara, a researcher at Austral University and Chile's center for climate science and resilience, who is part of the team measuring the tree's age. The Great Grandfather lies on the edge of a ravine in a forest in the southern Los Rios region, 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the south of the capital Santiago. Finally, Scientists Uncover the Genetic Basis of Fingerprints Fascinating. And more posthumous validation for Alan Turing. From The Scientist: How the unique arrays of swirls, arches, and loops on the tips of our fingers form is a longstanding scientific enigma. Now, a paper published February 9 in Cell has solved the mystery, revealing not only the process by which fingerprints are formed, but also the genes responsible. And, it turns out, our distinctive prints stem from the same phenomenon that gives zebras their stripes and leopards their spots. For several years, University of Edinburgh developmental biologists Denis Headon, James Glover, and their colleagues had been investigating how skin develops and matures, with a special interest in fingerprints. Fingerprints form before birth and may have evolved because they improve our ability to grip onto or feel the texture of objects. Still, scientists have long been stumped when it comes to the actual mechanisms by which these distinctive patterns develop. ✂️ It had been previously suggested fingerprints may arise from some form of pre-existing template, the way finger skin cells communicate, or even just simple wrinkling of the skin. To figure out which, if any, of these ideas is correct, Headon and his team used a variety of methods, including examining mouse and human tissue under a microscope, looking at the gene expression of single cells using single nucleus RNA sequencing, growing groups of cells on culture plates, and computer modeling. ✂️ Headon’s team ultimately found that fingerprints start out looking very similar to hair follicles: Both begin as small discs of cells on the epithelium, and in both cases, the cells turn on genes for a suite of proteins including EDAR and WNT—which are respectively related to how epithelial cells and cells in general migrate, differentiate, and mature. However, hair follicles go on to recruit cells from layers below the epithelium, forming a deep tube where hair will eventually grow. Slight differences in gene expression prevent this recruitment step from happening in fingerprints. Those same differences in gene expression also seem to set up a Turing pattern, named for the English mathematician Alan Turing who first hypothesized its existence. Back in 1952, Turing suggested that natural biological patterns like stripes or spots could form in the presence of two molecules: a slow-moving activator and a fast-moving inhibitor. * * * * * Good news for the environment Environmental groups celebrate a victory for the planet as Chevron surrenders 19 offshore oil and gas exploration permits in B.C. This is amazing good news! Now more of Canada’s coast needs to be protected from potention oil and gas projects. From EcoJustice: WWF-Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation welcome the news that Chevron Canada Limited has relinquished 19 offshore oil and gas exploration permits within sensitive marine areas on Canada’s west coast. The two conservation organizations, represented by Ecojustice lawyers, disputed these permits in a court challenge launched in July 2022. These permits lay within the Hecate Strait/Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area and the Scott Islands Marine National Wildlife Area. The rare and ancient reefs are the largest among several others found along the coast of B.C. and Alaska. Collectively these reefs remove between 136 and 317 tonnes of CO2 daily. The Scott Islands represent one of the most diverse marine ecosystems on Canada’s west coast, supporting the coast’s highest concentration of breeding seabirds. The permits, granted more than 50 years ago, have been a cause of grave concern for the environmental conservation groups, who launched a court challenge after efforts to encourage the voluntary surrender of the permits were unsuccessful. Following Chevron’s surrender, the groups have discontinued the legal challenge, which never proceeded to a full hearing. While this marks an important milestone for the protection of these two areas, Canada’s coast continues to face ongoing risk from potential oil and gas projects. World’s Tallest ‘Hempcrete’ Building in South Africa Captures More Carbon than it Emits This is a very clever building innovation, and the idea of selling carbon credits with buildings instead of trees is definitely intriguing. From Good News Network: At 12 stories tall, the Hemp Hotel [in Cape Town, set to open this June,] used carbon-negative materials that captured more carbon in the walls of the building than it emitted manufacturing them. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa believes that the cannabis and hemp industry could create 130,000 jobs in places like Afrimat Hemp—the producer of the so-called “HempCrete” blocks which went into the hotel. Made from water, lime, hemp, and a cement binder, the blocks from Afrimat Hemp are made of entirely South African hemp, which along with selling to corporate clients, are also used to build a number of social housing projects in South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique. ✂️ The company admit that hemp construction is 20% more expensive than traditional materials, but the urgency with which some corporations want to help tackle climate change offers them a unique opportunity: selling carbon credits—but with buildings, rather than trees. This year’s winners of the Goldman Prize (the “Green Nobel”) Open the Goldman Prize link to read about the winners — it’s a great antidote to thinking that individuals don’t have the power to create change. From Future Crunch: The winners of this year's Goldman Prize (the 'Green Nobel') were recently announced, and if you're looking for some inspiration, then you should really spend a few minutes exploring the stories of these six incredible eco-warriors. Alessandra Munduruku , who saved indigenous lands in the Amazon from mining , who saved indigenous lands in the Amazon from mining Chilekwa Mumba , who successfully sued the owners of a copper mine in Zambia , who successfully sued the owners of a copper mine in Zambia Delima Silalahi , who reclaimed swathes of Indonesia from a paper company , who reclaimed swathes of Indonesia from a paper company Zafer Kizilkaya , who expanded Turkey’s marine protected areas , who expanded Turkey’s marine protected areas Tero Mustonen, who pioneered peatland restoration in Finland who pioneered peatland restoration in Finland Diane Wilson , who held a plastics company to account for dumping in Texas * * * * * Good news for and about animals Brought to you by Rosy, Nora, and Rascal. Rosy chose this one, obviously. We haven’t been there yet, but it’s definitely on our to-do list. Portland’s doggie food cart serves pup-tarts and em-paw-nadas From The Oregonian: Portland ranks as the best food truck city in the United States. So you might be surprised to hear that with the endless pod options around town, there is one customer base that’s been mostly untapped in the cart scene. That is, until Bring! Treats for Dogs opened on Southeast Division Street. That’s right, a food cart dedicated solely to dogs. The only one of its kind in Portland (at least that we could find). Kristen Martin is the dog lover and baker behind Bring! Treats for Dogs. Martin bakes all of her dog treats from scratch… . Inspired by the needs of her own dog, Moxie (who also serves as Bring! director of quality control), Martin’s dog treats are human-grade, organic and gluten-free. Martin spent more than 17 years in the wine distribution industry, before pivoting to her dog treat business. The pandemic made her reconsider her career path. She knew she loved dogs and wanted a creative outlet. Nora chose this interesting story about the evolution of modern cats. And she reminds you that every cat has the same impressive pedigree, so treat them with respect! The great European house cat migration From Big Think: Domestic cat bones around 8,000 years old have recently been found in both Serbia and Poland. This pushes back the arrival in Europe of one of humanity’s earliest companion animals by several thousands of years. ✂️ In the last two decades, it has been established that the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica) is the common ancestor of all domesticated cats, and that they were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago. It also could be said that cats domesticated themselves; they were attracted to the rodents that feasted off the harvests of the earliest farmers. They chose us, not the other way around. In turn, those early farmers appreciated this welcome form of pest control. So, unlike dogs — which were domesticated earlier, initially for hunting — cats weren’t bred for various specific purposes. They arrived as a “ready-made” symbiotic species, so to speak. An antique cat mummy, one of countless beloved pets thus preserved by the ancient Egyptians. A separate domestication happened in Egypt around 3,500 years ago. This second population was likely tamer and more sociable. The ancient Egyptians were certainly smitten. In fact, Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of love, had a cat’s head. Killing a cat could get you executed. And the cat necropolis (or meow-soleum) of Beni-Hassan contains some 300,000 mummies of cats, cared for even in the afterlife. A 2017 study of cat DNA from 200 specimens across time and place showed these two distinct populations — from the Fertile Crescent and from Egypt — contributed to the common domesticated feline that we know today. Rascal is happy that forest managers are finally learning from the creatures that live there. About time! Woodpecker guides post-fire forest management From Science Daily: What's good for the Black-backed Woodpecker is good for restoration of burned California forests. The birds' unique relationship with fire underpins the latest research into improved post-fire management. A study published in Ecological Applications describes a new tool that factors how fires burn into forest management decisions and turns science into action for wildlife conservation. Black-backed Woodpecker at its nest in a burned tree. "Wildfire is like a 10,000-piece puzzle, and climate change is rearranging the pieces," said lead author Andrew Stillman with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Gigantic, severe fires are becoming the new norm in California due to drought, longer burn seasons, and dense forests. But birds do really well in landscapes that are 'pyrodiverse'- areas where fire results in uneven patches burned at high, medium, and low severity." Black-backed Woodpeckers love pyrodiversity. They prefer to build their nest cavities in newly burned areas after high severity fire. But they also like to be adjacent to an area that burned at low intensity where their young can hide from predators among living trees that still provide cover. The species' unique habitat associations means that they are sensitive to the removal of trees after fire, and forest managers use information on the woodpecker to guide their post-fire planning. After a wildfire, forest managers face difficult decisions about how to best protect and restore the burned areas while balancing the needs of people and wildlife. Sometimes there isn't time to survey wildlife in burned areas, making it hard to choose where to invest in wildlife conservation. To address this need, the researchers developed an online tool to predict the potential abundance of Black-backed Woodpeckers after fire. Incorporating new information on the value of pyrodiversity made the underlying models more accurate. * * * * * Art break The greatest bird artist you’ve never heard of Brasher’s work is just stunning, and unlike Audubon, he worked entirely by observing live birds in the wild. From The Washington Post (gift link): [The Rex Brasher Association] hope[s] to resurrect the legacy and reputation of a man many people feel painted birds as well as or better than John James Audubon. ✂️ Brasher’s personality and working methods (he abjured the killing of birds and was deeply connected to the natural world) stand in sharp contrast to Audubon. x YouTube Video * * * * * Hot lynx wapo.st/...(gift link): AI pioneer quits Google to warn humanity of the tech’s existential threat. A scary but very important article. [The AP version of this story was published on DKos on May 2] www.motherjones.com/...Tucker Carlson’s Long Con. David Corn on Carlson’s “long strange trip.” www.cnn.com/… New documents show how Sandra Day O’Connor helped George W. Bush win the 2000 election. An infuriating but fascinating deep dive, showing that SCOTUS has been dysfunctional for a long time. wagingnonviolence.org/… Why I’m Saying No to the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] as a 17-Year-Old. A powerful statement and an encouraging sign that young Israelis are pushing back against Israel’s right wing. www.yesmagazine.org/… Uncovering the Asian American Old West. A fascinating piece that’s part of a welcome movement to shine light on suppressed aspects of American history. thagomizer.com/… We Don’t Do That Here. An intriguing suggestion for using just five words to deal with inappropriate behavior. nymag.com/… Who Is Still Inside the Metaverse? A hilarious and disturbing piece by an Irish novelist who turns to the Metaverse for new friends and finds it to be a “deserted fantasyland.” Recommended by one of my favorite bloggers, Laura Olin, who just reappeared after being silent for over a year. * * * * * Where Ever is Herd Morning Good News Roundups at 7 x 7: These Gnusies lead the herd at 7 a.m. ET, 7 days a week: As noted last week, our lineup has changed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Thanks again to niftywriter for holding down truth and justice on Wednesdays! Closing music Another great song on the theme of taking action. x YouTube Video ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Thanks to all of you for your smarts, your hearts, and your faithful attendance at our daily Gathering of the Herd. ❤️💙 RESIST, PERSIST, REBUILD, REJOICE! 💙❤️ [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/9/2167115/-Good-News-Roundup-for-May-9-2023 Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/